Good news!

The past few weeks, I've really felt the many prayers that I know were being lifted up. I wasn't feeling as anxious or discouraged which was a huge improvement from a few weeks ago! Waiting for approval was always in the back of my mind, but I had gotten to the point where it wasn't consuming my thoughts. I knew we would eventually be approved and I was just going to have to be patient. 

So today when my phone rang at 6:59 am, I honestly expected it to be my mom calling me. To my surprise, I looked down to see our caseworkers name!

"Hi Megan! I have good news!! Your family is approved"

Ahhh, like music to my ears. My heart was beating faster, my palms were sweaty, and the grin on my face made my cheeks hurt! 

We found out that our home study must have accidentally been skipped over. It happens sometimes. I trust that God has a reason we were skipped over and that he is leading us on the perfect path to our daughter. 

So, what's next you ask? First, we're going to celebrate this small victory! Then, we buckle up and prepare for more (you guessed it) waiting.

We are now officially able to be matched. This can take anywhere from a few days to many months. Our caseworker will search the database for us every day to look for a match based on the special needs that we are open to. 

We can't even begin to tell you how excited we are to finally to see the face of our sweet little Maya. This girl is so loved. She is prayed for and talked about daily in our home and among our family members and dear friends. She even has some pretty little dresses waiting for her in her closet! :)

We ask that you'd continue to keep our family in your prayers and have some specific prayer requests:

• We are waiting for our USCIS approval and some documents getting apostilled in two different states. Please pray that we would get the approval and documents soon so we can finish our dossier. 
• Be praying for a referral to come to us quickly! You can also pray that we would be open to the daughter God has for us.
• Prayers for patience and peace during the waiting would definitely be appreciated. 
• Always pray for our little Maya. We may not know who she is, but God does. 

A Prayer Request

This past week, we were hoping to get to share exciting news of progress in our adoption. However, 8 weeks have passed and we are still waiting on that approval. 

For those who are not familiar with the process, our home study was uploaded to a database for review in Ind*a by C*RA back in February. Once we're approved, we will officially be waiting for a match!  

We're not really sure why we haven't received this approval yet.

Thankfully, we have an amazing caseworker who is proactive and sent an email to C*ARA on Tuesday to check on the status of our home study approval, but we could wait a while for a response. And no, we're not sure how long that might be! ;) 

Despite the delays we've experienced, we're still so excited! We are just about bursting with joy to be one baby step closer to our sweet daughter. We still can't get over the fact how our love can be so strong for a child we have never even seen! Oh sweet girl, your mommy, daddy, and big brothers can't wait to finally see your face! 

For now, we are asking for you to pray that the email our caseworker sent will be read by C*RA and that we will get the C*RINGS approval that we have been waiting for. 

Making Memories

I loved my childhood. 

My fondest memories involved camping with my family. Playing games, exploring, reading for hours in a secret spot that I found in the woods, fishing with my dad, spontaneously swimming in a creek, roasting hot dogs and eating s'mores around the campfire.

As a parent, now it's my turn to be intentional about making memories as a family. I want to incorporate some of the things that I loved doing as a child, into my children's lives.

A few weeks ago we took a little day trip up to Sedona. Isn't God's creation just amazing?

The water was so cold it felt like our feet were going to fall off, but the boys still wanted to get their feet wet! 

I love giving the boys the freedom to explore on their own. They were so happy to climb and hike just like big boys!  

We had so much fun exploring Slide Rock State Park together! We're looking forward to making more outdoor memories this summer.

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. 

The week of updates!

What a wonderful week this has been for our family! 

A year ago I was signing a different tune. A year ago today, I was laying in a hospital bed getting ready to have a D&C when my doctor shared bad news about my high hcg levels which indicated a molar pregnancy. I shared a little about my miscarriage in a previous post if you missed it!

Each day I am  reminded of how much God has provided and has been there for me through my trials and my triumphs. As I look back on my year full of loss, sadness, fear, doctors appointments, and weekly methotrexate injections, I can't help but thank God for those experiences. 

They shaped me. They strengthened me. They led me here.

This week has been amazing. God has shown his faithfulness!

Mason started soccer on Tuesday which is something he has been looking forward to since we signed him up around Christmas time. He did great at his first practice and had a ton of fun meeting new friends and learning new skills! He's so excited for his next practice.

That same night we got an email from our social worker that we were officially certified to adopt! You guys, that news made our night! We had been waiting SO long to finally be finished with our home study so we could move forward with our adoption process.

God didn't stop with the news there! On Friday evening, we got an email from our family coordinator that just completely caught me off-guard. You see, we struggled to get to this point and it took MUCH longer than we had anticipated. Honestly, I was kind of expecting to have to deal with some of the same issues again due to some changes with our agency, but I feel like God provided us with reassurance that he has his hand in this process when we received her email.

The subject line made me giddy: Home study registered on C*RINGS!

As of right now, we are officially waiting for Ind*a to approve our home study. We were told this can take about 2 months. Once we have approval, we will be able to be matched! Yes, matched. Like, finally get to see a picture of our little girl and learn more about her! This is the stuff of my dreams! We are so thankful that God is paving a path to our daughter and we are so excited to see her precious face! 

In the meantime, we have some specific prayer requests:

• That our home study would be reviewed and approved in a quick and efficient manner
• That we could tackle the next portion of paperwork easily and be granted approval (I-800A)
• That we would have a quick referral process 

We truly believe in the power of prayer and appreciate each an everyone one of you for joining in on our journey!

Until next time!

Moving forward with patience

Last week we experienced some answered prayers! In my last post I was feeling down about the lack of progress we have made thus far in our adoption. I can't tell you how many times people have asked me, "So, how's the adoption going? What part of the process are you in now? My answer for months has been, "Well, it's going....slowly...we're still working on completing our home study."

I'm pleased to say that we are almost completely finished with our home study! We were able to review the draft last Thursday night and it was perfect! Our social worker was able to submit it to court on Tuesday morning (since Monday was a holiday)! Now we wait for the final approval!

It's amazing what a small step forward in the process can do for your soul. I know that we still have a LONG road ahead, but I am doing my best to rest in God's provision thus far. In this season of my life God is teaching me patience. I'm extremely patient when it comes to my children, but my patience is terrible when it comes to waiting for events (like, for example I'm already getting antsy about getting home study approval!) I'm guessing that through this adoption process my patience will be tested and stretched in ways that I never thought possible.

If I needed any confirmation of the fact that the Lord was trying to teach me patience, today's devotional was just that.

Ephesians 4:1-2 "I therefore a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

Jesus was the perfect model of patience. He endured negative circumstances, coped with difficult people (and prayed for them), he showed willingness to accept his Father's plan, and suffered on the cross because he knew it was God's will.

My prayer is that I could follow Christ's perfect example and work towards patience in ALL circumstances.

Here's to practicing patience and a cheerful attitude while I wait!

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!