Adoption Updates and the New Year

I set a deadline to have all of our paperwork mailed in to the agency we are using be December 31st. I think I might be pretty close. I tried to get it all in order the weeks before Christmas because I knew the rest of the month would be pretty hopeless. I ordered our profile books a few weeks ago and they came right before Christmas. I LOVE how they turned out. I used Shutterfly.com and I knew the quality would be great since I have used them before. I probably spent four months putting that book together. I wanted it to look just right, but also show exactly how we are. There is a lot of pressure there.
I also ordered our puzzle for the Puzzle Fundraiser from Puzzle you and it should be coming in the mail any day now. I am so excited to write on the backs of the puzzle pieces of all of our amazing Generous Donors!!!! This baby is already loved beyond measure. I also can't wait to put the puzzle together. Most of you may not know how much I thoroughly enjoy putting them together. I can sit for hours at a puzzle. I will make sure to take pictures of the puzzle and the process of putting it together.
I wanted to mention the agency we have decided to use. We prayed about this and wanted to make sure we were making the right decision on which agency was going to bring us our baby. We felt strongly about using an agency and we know that there are so many great ones out there. We are using A Guardian Angel. We feel great about this agency and would recommend them to anyone.
Well we are happy that things are moving along and as the new year approaches, I am excited to think that 2015 will be the year we bring a baby home! Happy New Year everyone and we will continue to keep you all posted as we move forward with the adoption.

Home Study... CHECK!

Today was a big day for us. The home study has been on my mind for a very long time. If anything, it's one way to get my house completely cleaned, de-cluttered and organized. Which is what I spent the last month doing. I might have gone a little over kill... maybe. But all in good reason and it needed to be done, for my sake anyway. I will say that we have an amazing Social Worker and she made us feel completely at ease. Gabe really liked her too, which is always a good thing.
 For those of you who may not know what a home study is, it is an assessment of prospective adoptive parents to see if they are suitable for adopting a child. But I like how my social worker explained it to Gabe. She said that she was there to write down our family's story and then share it to birth moms so that we can bring home our baby.
We were very eager to sit down and talk with our social worker. She wanted us to give her a tour of our home and then we sat down and talked about us, our family, our upbringing, adoption, birth mothers, placement, bringing our baby home... etc. It was really nice and I stressed myself out way more than I needed to. I'm glad it is over and done with because that means that we are one step closer to getting our baby. Next step is to finish all our paperwork and send it in to our Agency. My deadline for that is the end of December. I will be glad to get that part of the process done.
We are getting more excited every day about meeting our little one. We are praying for our birth mom every morning and night. We pray that she will find the peace and comfort she needs as she is going through this hard experience. We are hoping that she is praying to find us. We love her and we are grateful for the selfless choice she has decided to make. Words really cant express the emotion I personally feel for her. She is so wonderful and we cant wait to meet her.
Home study... Done!! One more thing to check off our list.

Sharing our news

I am so excited we finally announced that we are starting the adoption process. We have held it in for quite some time now and we are so glad to share it. We are currently in the process of getting everything ready to schedule our Home Study. We have sent in our BCI's and we're just waiting for them to come back. It can take anywhere from four to eight weeks we were told. Once they are back, we can schedule our Home Study and move forward from there. Very exciting. We are fairly certain we have chosen our agency we will be working with so I will keep you posted when that is final. We want to keep our blog updated with all the progress we are making. We think it will be a fun way to keep all our friends and family informed.
Some of my thoughts... I find myself daydreaming about adoption and our future child. It is always on my mind. I feel like I can take a big, deep breath. That sounds silly but for so long, we have fought the hard battle of infertility and it is so tiring. There was a time, and it wasn't long ago, when people would ask me how I was doing or how I was holding up and I would have to put on my smile and say that I was doing "ok." I didn't want to share how I was really feeling. I didn't want to burden anyone. However, I am finding that although the sting of our infertility is still there, it is not crippling me. I am excited and hopeful about our families future. Two emotions I haven't felt very often in a long time. It is amazing how the Lord's timing works. If not for our trials we have had to face these last four years, we probably would not be going down this wonderful road.  
We are overwhelmed with the love and support we  have felt from everyone since we have made our announcement. Thank you for sharing your excitement and sweet comments. We are lucky to be surrounded by so many friends and family. We are truly grateful.