First Interview.....

  Our social/caseworker called us yesterday and we have our first  home study interview on Thursday the 31st, our second interview will  be Friday the 1st of Feb. This process is on its WAY!!!!!!!
 We are super excited and are ready to take this on.
        
    We will be in San Diego this weekend to say goodbye to my brother as he sets sail to his new career as a flight attendant! Very happy for him but also sad to see him go!

     Being in San Diego gives me an excuse to take my mom and grandma with me to get a few baby things! One thing we will not have to purchase is a crib!!! that is because my very dear friend Jessie was so sweet to send us a brand new convertible crib... We are so truly blessed to have such an amazing support system... Thank you again Jessie!

Step One..... Done!!!

We got our application and first payment sent out and we are ready for the next step!! We are well aware of how long and stressful this process will be, however we are very excited to have officially started the process. We also want to once again thank all of our friends and family who have been praying and sending positive thoughts our way! We absolutely feel the love!!

An Amazing Sunday

As we journey through our process to adopt a child we have had to consider many aspects of our lives, including our spiritual health. Amy and I were raised in Christian homes.We both know we want to raise our child with solid biblical values and fully enveloped into a church family. So we sought out a church, we have been 'shopping' around for a proper fit for us. We are happy to say that we have found that fit at Foothill Baptist Church. We attended our first service today and the message from Pastor Matt was one of forgiveness. Amy and I have had many discussions regarding this very subject in regards to things that have happened in our lives since we have been together. Forgiveness is infininate, acceptance of the forgived back into my life is not necessary. Forgiveness is just as much for me as those that I forgive. Another solid message to me, I felt as though God was speaking to me through the pastor, that many adults with difficult childhoods have a tendency to make good parents. This was so very reassuring for me, I lose sleep at night worrying about how I do not want to leave our little bundle of joy with a nothing less than joyful and well disciplined childhood. With prayer and guidance I hope to be a good father and a loving dad.

Day one.....

Hank and I went to an adoption seminar today. We received so much info and were a little overwhelmed with it all. We did however leave the seminar with such joy in our hearts as well as a fire to find that baby of ours!!! We have 95% decided that this is going to be the agency we continue with. They were very up front and honest and it felt right! We just have some concerns with the cost. Adoption is expensive and a little intimidating looking at the price list, but we know that God is a great provider and will guide us along! So with that said we are planning on filling out our application (all 45pages) this week and after prayer and communicating with each other we will hopefully be applying by Friday depending on if we turn that 95% to 100%...
 We also went to my cousin Donna and her husband Phil's sons baptism today! It was such a beautiful and touching time in Nathanael's life and we were so thrilled to be a part of it. Donna and Phil are such beautiful caring parents and we are so happy they have such an adorable sweet boy! Congratulations Nathanael and we pray that God protects and guides your life down a healthy and successful path.We love you!

Here we go.....

   So Hank and I decided this would be a great way to share our experiences with our journey through adoption. We also hope by sharing some of our private family struggles our friends and families would graciously pray and send positive thoughts our way!

 To start this I would like to share with you how we came to the decision to adopt. Hank and I have always had it in our hearts to be parents. I have wanted nothing more in my life to be a mother and had always had a plan to have 2 biological children and 2 adopted children once my bio children were older. Well, apparently God's plan was much different. We found out in March of 2012 that I had a rare birth defect that was causing issues with getting pregnant. I have a Unicornuate uterus, in other words half a uterus and only one fallopian tube. With this defect I have a 25% chance of conceiving with a high dose of invitrofertilization medicine and only a 30% chance of staying pregnant full term. As devastating as this news was to Hank and I we had a huge decision to make. Would we go through with invitro and hope we would slip through those odds? or would we find an alternative to fulfilling our dreams? We decided the odds were stacked to high against us and didn't think the emotional effect of not getting pregnant or loosing the baby if we did get pregnant would be to much for us to deal with. We looked into surrogacy and that was just not for us. So here we are going for the adoption and we couldn't be happier. The idea of saving a young child and giving it a home and all the love we could possibly give puts a huge smile on our faces.

 

      We would love for all of you to keep Hank and I in your daily prayers. We would also like you to pray for our child we have yet to meet.