May 4th

Today is the day one year ago that we were officially matched in the system with our little sweet P.

We knew the moment we saw her face on a Friday morning, that she was ours. Despite the unknowns, (and there were A LOT) we made the decision to email our family coordinator Saturday night and request to be matched with her. By 6am Monday, May 4th, 2015 my phone was ringing. Our family coordinator was calling to let us know that we were officially matched with P.

What a year it's been. I feel like we're on this crazy rollercoaster and we have NO idea when the ride will end. But it's also an amazing rollercoaster, and I feel blessed to be on this ride called adoption. The highs and lows have taught me so much about Jesus. His longsuffering patience. His unwavering love. His pure goodness.

We stepped out in blind faith this day one year ago. We felt a peace that only God could bring to our hearts in this situation. A peace that allowed us to move forward without any real information other than 4 pictures.

Today, one year after our match, we are waiting for a court date to attend. This is where a judge in Ind*a will legally make her what we've known her to be for a year now. Our precious, chosen, daughter. A Salonga.


Here is how you can be praying for us:

• We ask that you pray for our attorney. We won't share her name with you, but God knows who she is. Please pray that she will receive our affidavit and register our case in court so we can have a date set. 

• Please be in prayer for our court date. We are boldly praying for a June date. 

• Pray that our judge would be for adoption and would grant us verbal and written orders in record time. 

• Pray for our last moments of a family of four. That all of our hearts would be prepared for this new transition to a daughter and a little sister. 

• Please continue to pray for P. Pray for her little heart. What she has known for 3.5 years is about the come to an end. The loss and pain that she will experience is so huge. Pray that we would be able to be a source of comfort for her and we could help her to handle her grief. 

I'll leave you all with this picture of her. I could stare that those adorable little feet and that cute denim skirt all day! 

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

Remembering :: The days leading up to our referral

I'm notorious for using this blog like a diary. I'll write and write posts because I don't want to forget how I felt at certain points in the process, but often they get left as drafts because I either never finished my thought, or because I'm waiting for the right approval before I share more details about our process. Of course, there are quite a few details that I won't be able to share until we have our girl in our arms, so you'll have to wait to hear about those!

But, I want to begin sharing some of these stories because they are such wonderful reminders of how faithful God is and how much He has sustained us through this journey.

I can't believe that I wrote these posts so long ago!

::April 30, 2015:: 

After 12 weeks of waiting, our home study was approved by Ind*a! This meant that we were finally ale to be matched with a child!

Thursday night at my women's Bible study, as I was sharing the excitement of our approval with my sweet sisters in Christ, I also asked them to pray for a few specific things:

• That we would be matched quickly.
• That we would be open to the daughter God has for us, even if her special needs were different than we expected.
• And of course, my constant prayer to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus and for patience. 

On the way home from Bible study, Stephen Curtis Chapman's song, Something Beautiful was playing on the radio and though I've heard that song so many times, the chorus stuck with me and was playing on repeat in my head. Seriously. All. Night. Long.

"And God says,
I'm gonna turn it into something different,
I'm gonna turn it into something good.
I'm gonna take all the broken pieces
And make something beautiful like only I could.
So put it all in the hands of the Father
Give it up, give it all over to
The only one who can turn it into
Something beautiful,
Something really beautiful."

At that point, I was thinking, "Yes, God really does have a reason as to why everything took SO long in the beginning of our process. There is a reason our approval took over 2 months. He's got this. We WILL get our daughter, maybe not on our own timeline, but when has His timeline failed us? Never!"

::May 1, 2015::

Friday morning our family coordinator sent an email just checking to see how close we are to finishing up our dossier. (Which by the way, TWO of the three documents we needed came in the mail the day before, so YAY for answered prayers!) I let her know that we were pretty close to being done with it.

A little less than an hour later, around 9:00 AM my phone rings and I notice it's our agency. I picked it up assuming our caseworker wanted to discuss what to do once we're ready to send our dossier to her.

Instead, this regular phone call, turned in the THE phone call!!!! Just ONE day after we had finally been approved to receive a referral! 

I'll never forget the words she said:

"I have a little girl that I'd like you to consider. I think she'd be a perfect match for your family."

She began to describe the little girl known as "P", who was two and a half years old . After describing some delays we might encounter due to the particular state she's in, the need for two trips (one for court, and another for pick up), and some serious unknowns about her special need, she asked if we would like to see some pictures of her. 

Of course?! Why wouldn't we? What an answered prayer! A potential referral after only a day of being approved in the system?! Pinch me!!

What a blessing to finally open that email and see not one, but FOUR amazing pictures of this precious girl...one even being a picture of her as a newborn baby!  Let me tell you, she is SO beautiful. We were pretty much in love with this girl from the start. When Mark saw her picture for the first time he immediately said "that's our girl!" My emotions went from extreme giddiness to fear. You see, we were given no information about this sweet girl's special need other than a brief, obvious description. No why, no diagnosis, no medical report, no child study, nothing. It was slightly terrifying...but at the same time, we knew in our hearts she is the daughter God had for us.

We decided to take the weekend to really pray about her. To be honest, for a short time I struggled with the known delays we would face due to the fact that she's in a state that's known to be much slower. All I wanted was to bring home our daughter as quickly as possible. The Lord really revealed my own selfishness in that. This whole journey to a third child has NOT been on my own timeline, but I can say with complete confidence that God has worked everything out for HIS good in HIS own time. The other immediate hesitation was her special need and the lack of medical information pertaining to it. Seriously, we had four pictures, and a name. That was it.

::May 2, 2015::

I got to spend the morning at Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market with my best friend, who also happens to be a nurse. We spent the morning talking about little P and her special need. She helped me so much that day. So much back and fourth, so many whatifs, still so many unknowns. But as we talked, I began to feel at peace. I really just felt that the Lord was calling us to step out in faith and say "yes" to this little girl. To trust that He would work out all the unknowns. After talking and praying, Mark and I decided to email our family coordinator  and asked her to match us with P. She was ours and we would fight for her no matter what.

::May 4, 2015::

My phone rang at 6:05am and I used my best "I've been awake for an hour already voice" to answer when I saw that it was our family coordinator. She informed us that we were officially matched to P! She reminded us of the long wait that was ahead of us due to the region she lives in. So, here we go! We're buckling up for what I'm sure will be a huge rollercoaster of emotions and some serious practice in patience as we wait for our P to come home.

"Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!"
Psalms 27:14

Trying to wait well.

A little over a month ago, our home study was uploaded to the C*RINGS database for the Ind*an government to approve. We were told this can take anywhere from 1-2 months for the approval.

During that first month I would wake up each morning with such joy and excitement:

"Today I am one day closer to my little girl." 

It really is such a wonderful feeling to know that we are getting closer to being approved by Ind*a so we can be matched!

That whole first month, I obviously did not expect to hear anything. I went about daily life as usual, feeling all patient and excited.

Now, here we are going on 6 weeks into the wait, (which is NOTHING in adoption timelines) and if I'm being quite honest, I feel the impatience sneaking in. Every email notification I hear on my phone, or every time my phone rings, I immediately get that nervous/excited feeling thinking, "This could be our family coordinator calling with good news of our approval!"

Today, I found out that our home study is still under review but since we're still in the 1-2 month time frame, there is no cause for concern. So, we just need to wait and be patient.

Waiting and patience will probably be the most highly used words in this entire blog. The crazy part is, the waiting will only get harder. Right now, our wait doesn't have a face attached to it. Soon (hopefully), it will.

I read a blog post the other day about waiting during adoption and one quote really stuck with me,

"Wait well, friends who wait in whatever stage you’re in. It’s not easy in any stage to wait but the journey of adoption is about the whole process, not just the destination. It is ever changing and growth is constant even if we can’t see it with out eyes."

Then today, my sweet friend reminded me, 

"God's perfect timing is what you are really waiting on. A later approval might be the perfect set up for bringing Maya to you..."

Such truths, such wonderful reminders.

Who am I to doubt God's sovereignty?

I know that He is working while I am waiting. Today I will rest in that fact. Then tomorrow, I will remind myself again, and again.

Because after all, this journey is all about waiting and patience. 

garage sale, home study, and some thoughts...

I've neglected the blog, but I want to update you all on what's been going on with our adoption!

Our fundraiser garage sale in October was a HUGE success! So many people were beyond generous with their donations, and we had a great turn out! By God's grace, we were able to raise $2,026!! Yes, you read correctly! Isn't God amazing?! That money really helped us to take care of our home study fees.

It was not an easy task, but we know our sweet girl will be worth it! Sooo many hours were spent sorting, organizing, and pricing all the wonderful donations.We really couldn't have pulled off such a successful sale without the help of our amazing family and friends.

I really want to keep you all informed when it comes to our adoption journey. I've gone to write a blog post several times and just ended up not being able to find the words to say. I think I was struggling with the fact that NOTHING was happening. Documents were submitted, forms were filled out, paper was chased, but we just weren't able to make any progress on our home study since mid October. Home studies do NOT need to take this long, but from some reason ours is.

The problem is, I have this sense of urgency to get our daughter home (what adoptive mama doesn't?!). She needs a mommy and daddy to love her and care for her. She needs her big brothers to protect her. She needs the support of an extended family and friends who wants nothing but the best for her. But we are so. far. away. from getting to bring our girl home. I know we don't know her yet, or have a picture of her, but that still doesn't change the fact that there is an orphan somewhere in Ind*a who belongs in our family. I was frustrated when meetings were delayed and pushed out. Annoyed that meetings wouldn't get to happen until DECEMBER (which seemed so far away at the time). But even with all those feelings, I kept telling myself that God had a plan and I needed to trust him.

Well, December came and went and we had our individual interviews with our social worker on the 5th and our joint interviews on the 13th! It was nice to feel like we were actually making progress with our home study because I was starting to feel so disconnected from the whole process!

The dreaded home study really wasn't as scary as I had thought that it was going to be. The interviews were just going over a lot of what we had already written in our autobiographies. It was a lot about our childhood, our families, and some questions about parenting our marriage, and discussion about special needs we feel prepared to handle. Super easy! The home inspection was even easier. We walked though our house and she made sure everything was safe, we had a space for our daughter, and chemicals and medicine were out of reach from little hands. I of course went a little overboard with the cleaning and decorating to make sure our house had that "homey" feeling. The one thing that surprised us was that she wanted to check out our refrigerator to make sure we actually had food. Too bad it was due for a cleaning and re-organizing...oh well! The joint interview went great. Mark and I really enjoyed just talking to our social worker and letting her get to know us!

Now we are just waiting for her to finish writing our draft so it can be reviewed by our family coordinator and then by us. Once we review it, it will be submitted to the court for final approval. Originally, we were told that we should be complete with our home study and ready to move on to the next step by the end of January, but now due to some delays we're looking at February.

We expected delays going into this adoption...just not this early in the process. We're so antsy get to the point of waiting to be matched with our daughter. We are trusting in God that our time will be soon. I know in my heart that God is writing the most perfect adoption story, but head just wants in on the details now! ;)

Please pray with us that our home study will be finalized and approved so that we can move forward with our adoption! And you can also pray for a little patience, I know we'll need it!

The Whys of Adoption: Part 1

"Why did you decide to adopt?"

Grab a cup of coffee, (or tea, or whatever you enjoy!) this may take a while to answer!

God called us to. The number one reason that I can give you is we truly feel that God is asking us to do this! We're simply being joyfully obedient with God's calling in our lives. From the time Mark and I began talking about our family and our future children, adoption has always been a part of our plans. We never knew the details or specifics, but who really does? We do know that God is writing our life story more beautifully and more perfectly than we ever could have imagined, so we'll continue to keep trusting that His ways really are much greater than our own!

Scripture. James 1:27 says we're all to care for orphans and widows. Whether that's sponsoring a child, being a foster parent, mission trips to orphanages, or helping out your next door neighbor who just happens to be a widow, it can look differently for each family. The Bible even talks about adoption. We believe that we have been adopted into God's family. What better way to represent the gospel of Christ than to take one of his children into our own family and love on them unconditionally, just like he loves us?

We desire more children.To really understand where we are coming from in this aspect, you would have to know that our journey to a third child has had a couple bumps in the road. Bumps that were devastating at the time, but bumps that ultimately allowed God to reveal more of His plan for our family.

I had pretty great pregnancies with both of our boys, so I never expected that future pregnancies would be any different! Our first attempt at number 3 ended in a miscarriage at 11 weeks. I knew miscarriage was out there, and it was scary, but until it happens to you, you feel safe. Oh, how naive. My heart was broken in a way that I could have never imagined. I clung to God and his word like nobody's business during this time. We grieved about the loss of our baby, but ultimately trusted in God's plan for our family. We knew that he had more children in store for us, so when the time was right we tried again.

About 5 months later we were blessed with another pregnancy! I was excited for about 5 seconds...and then the fear set in. My mind was filled with "what ifs" and worry. But again, I knew that God had a plan, and my job was to trust and enjoy my pregnancy as best as I could! Worry doesn't come from the Lord right?! We went in for our first ultrasound appointment at 8 weeks full of excitement to see our little baby. As soon as the image  projected on the screen, I knew something wasn't right. The horrifying words that I can still hear clear as day, "I'm so sorry, I can't see a baby." At that moment, my heart sank. How could this be happening again?? I'm supposed to see my baby today!! As the technician continued to take measurements, she mentioned that what she was looking at seemed abnormal and that she suspected a molar pregnancy, but wasn't quite sure. I was given a box a tissues and sent to another room to have an appointment with the midwife. I was placed on the roller coaster of uncertainty that sometimes comes along with miscarriage. Additional bloodwork, scans, appointments with a specialist...nobody quite knew what was going on, but I ended up being scheduled for a D&C a week and a half after that first ultrasound. At my follow up appointment, I got the devastating news that this was in fact, a complete molar pregnancy. There I was, grieving a second loss, and now that loss would be rubbed in my face with a weekly blood draw to monitor my hormone levels until they got down to zero (mine were over 150,000), and the possibility of a rare disease or even potential cancer (choriocarcinoma)  both of which would require the use of chemotherapy drugs.

We were told to wait to try again for at least six months to a year due to GTD. I was blessed to have so many prayer warriors on my side, but it seemed like the prayers just weren't going the way we had planned. We prayed for a healthy pregnancy (ended up with another miscarriage). We prayed that it wouldn't be molar, or at least not a complete molar (and it was complete). We prayed that my levels would go down without the use of drugs (and I ended up with Gestational Trophoblastic Disease or GTD and 8 weeks of methotrexate treatment). Somewhere along the middle of this road, I started to pray that God would just use this situation all for his glory and that he would reveal to me what I was supposed to learn from all of this. God used the loss, the sickness, the pain, the hurt, and strengthened my faith in such awesome ways.  I honestly can't pinpoint the exact moment, but I just couldn't shake the idea of adoption. It was always something we wanted to do, but I began feeling like it was something that we were supposed to pursue now rather than later. This little thought turned into a conviction! I started researching adoption, looking into agencies, looking at different country requirements, reading blogs, and reaching out to other families had gone through the adoption process. I also prayed  that my heart and mind would be aligned with God's will for our family. Basically, that He would either open or close doors, and change my heart one way or another. I'm telling you, when you pray this prayer, expect to be amazed! Mark and I felt a complete peace (and excitement!) about growing our family through adoption and finally decided that we needed to move forward. And that is exactly what we did!

Where my heart once ached to carry another baby, I am now at complete peace to have a child that has grown in my heart (Gosh, we already LOVE this little girl so unbelievably much and we don't even know who she is yet)! It's been so amazing to see God at work in the little time that we have been in this adoption process. I may have had a bit of a rough year, but I wouldn't trade it for one second, especially since it was all leading us to our sweet daughter.

Phew, if you made it through that, you're awesome!

Stay tuned for part 2 where I'll talk about why we decided to adopt internationally and why we chose Ind*a!

The Whys of Adoption

Since beginning the adoption process, so many people have been curious about our adoption plans. Many of the common questions are, "Why exactly did you decide to adopt?" ,"Why Ind*a?", "Why international adoption?", "Why not domestic adoption?", "Why is adoption so expensive?", "Why does it take so long?", etc. I can't speak for every adoptive family out there, but I can do my best to shed some light on some of the answers to these questions for our family personally.

So, stay tuned for the first installment where I'll be sharing why we decided to begin this crazy, beautiful adoption journey!

T-shirt fundraiser

I haven't posted an adoption update in a while because, well, there's not much to report! But, if I did post an update it would go a little something like this:

Every night I lay in bed thinking about paperwork. Correction. Pretty much every waking moment somewhere in the back of my mind you can bet I'm thinking about paperwork. Paperwork to gather, paperwork to get notarized, documents to create, what items can I check off the seemingly never-ending list that compiles our homestudy and dossier. Apparently, I'm slightly overwhelmed by paperwork. The pimples that are showing up on my face serve as proof to this. Yet, at the same time, I'm thankful for this paperwork. I'm thankful that each document gathered, each form notarized, each item checked off the list is one step closer to our little girl!

With that being said, we're meeting with our social worker for the first time on Saturday, our homestudy is coming up, and we're hoping to be able to submit our dossier by the end of the year at the latest.

Mark and I are so excited to officially announce our first fundraiser! Our hope and prayer is to raise enough funds to help offset some of our upcoming adoption expenses by selling some awesome t-shirts!We've been working with a great company called Fund the Nations who has helped us to create the most perfect t-shirts.

By purchasing a shirt (or two!) you're helping us get one step closer to our sweet girl, AND you're getting an awesome t-shirt that will promote adoption awareness and can serve as a reminder to pray for our family whenever you wear it! I'd say it's a win-win situation.

So here they are, the shirt designs! We will be taking pre-orders from August 20-September 5.

All pre-orders must be submitted to us and paid for by Friday, September 5, 2014. Once all pre-orders are received, we will be placing the order and the shirts will be shipped to us. If you are local (Glendale and surrounding Phoenix area) we will arrange delivery or pick-up. Otherwise, shipping will be a flat $4 fee per order. You can expect to have your shirts by mid-late September.

How to order:

1. Choose your t-shirt design (1 or 2), style (scoop neck or v-neck), and size.
2. Place your order one of many ways:
1. Send an email to megansalonga {at} gmail {dot} com with your order information.
2. Send either Mark or myself a message on Facebook
3. Comment on our t-shirt pictures on either Facebook or Instagram
4. Leave a comment on this blog post
3. We will send you an email confirming your order.

Pricing/Style/Sizing:

• Adult T-shirts will be $20 (plus $4 for shipping if you are not local to the Glendale/Phoenix area) for sizes XS-XXXL. Both designs 1 and 2 can be ordered as a traditional scoop neck (as shown in image) or v-neck for no additional cost. Please specify the type of neck line you would like. Otherwise, we will assume you are ordering scoop neck.
• The t-shirt itself is very soft, so it is a little thinner than your normal t-shirt, and a bit more fitted (some people say they run small, but it is just a more fitting shirt). Please keep this is mind when ordering, as some may want to order a size up. 
• Children's sizes (2T-youth sizes) will be available for $15

**UPDATE - A few people have shown some interest in getting one of the designs as a racerback style of shirt. If you are interested in this, please contact me ASAP and let me know which design preference you have so I can put you on a waiting list. We need to reach at least 13 shirts to place an order. Once I have 13 people on the list, I will look and see which design is the majority, as we can only do one of the designs. I will then contact everyone on the waiting list to finalize your order. **

Payment:

• Cash in person
• PayPal - You do not need a PayPal account in order to pay. Once you tell me your order, I will send you an invoice via email and from there, you can pay with a credit card.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions at all!

Remember to keep our family in your prayers. Thanks so much for your support and love! 

On life, homeschooling, and wait...WHAT?!?

Yes, my friends, you've read that right...

Ind*an adoption. As in, we're adopting from Ind*a!!

Before Mark and I got married, we dreamed about our family. How many kids would we have, what their little personalities be like, would they look like their Filipino daddy, or would they take after their half Ecuadorian, half white girl mama? But, we've always had it in our hearts to adopt. For us, adoption has never been an "if", but rather, a matter of "when".

As some of you may know, the past year has been one of the most trying years that we've endured since being married (I'll save that for a whole separate post), but it's also been one of the most faith growing years of my life. I've always had a strong faith in Christ, but I thank God for this past year (as crazy as that may sound) because its gotten me to this place of completely trusting in God's plan for my life, even if it involves loss, sickness, struggle, and pain. I can look back and see His hand print in every single moment of it. His timing is perfect!

Lately, we have really felt a calling that our "when" is now! We've spent the last month in serious prayer, sought Biblical council, prayed some more, talked to other adoptive families, prayed about it, researched agencies and countries, prayed a little lot more...well, you get the idea.We really wanted to make sure that calling we were feeling to act now was not out of our own desires (although we really do want this to happen), but that we were in line with God's will for our life.

So, we're excited to announce that we're officially in the adoption process!! It's going to be a long journey, but we can't wait for the day we get to bring our little girl home to her forever family!

As you may or may not know, adoption is super expensive. Like $25-30,000 expensive. But we know that since God has called us to this, that he will provide the funds to bring home our daughter. To help with some of the costs, we will be announcing a t-shirt fundraiser in the next couple of weeks (because who doesn't love an awesome t-shirt), and we're going to be having a huge garage sale in October and would be more than happy to accept donations of your "stuff" to sell!

Please be praying for our family as we go through this long process...it's going to take a village.