Stressed over nothing!

Today I had my individual interview with the adoption specialist. For those of you that didn't know I was suppose to have it on Monday, but Stacy called and rescheduled it for today (Wednesday). So this gave me 2 extra days to worry about it!!!! I got up at 5:30 since I had to drive 40 miles to Atlanta and be there by 9:00. So I left the house around 7:30 which I thought was plenty of time. I drove about 15 miles and it took me about 45 minutes! 8:30 rolls around and I start to get nervous because I still had a little ways to go. Finally I arrived and realized I was almost 15 minutes early!!!!! I went into the interview thinking they were going to ask really hard questions...which they did, but they were most of the questions we had to answer on our Self Study we had to fill out a couple of weeks ago. So I stressed over nothing!!! I always do that...I set myself up by worrying and when something is over I always think to myself that it was nothing to worry about! Something I am trying to work on! So now all we have left is to get our fingerprints done, which we are doing Friday and do our CPR course that we are doing March 21st. After that we wait for all of our paperwork to come in (very slow process) and then we can have our home visit. I will fill very relieved once we have that done.

So....over the weekend my dad came to visit with Josh and I. We hadn't seen him since Christmas so it was very good to see him! We had an awesome visit even though the weather was awful the whole weekend. Dad and I hung out Friday while Josh worked and we went and bought a glider for the baby's room and then we put it together! Saturday Josh, dad, and I put the crib together and I absolutely LOVE it! Those are the only two items we have so far for the baby's room...we are just buying things here and there so when we do get the call about our baby that we won't have to spend a fortune all at once. Here are a few pictures of the room so far....

Scrapbook for Birthparents

As I have mentioned before we have to make a scrapbook for the birthparents to choose us from. This is one of the hardest things we have done...because the birthparents choose us by this one book that has 8-10 pages in it. Since I am not very creative Lisa and Andrea have helped me make it! It is obviously not done yet, we haven't glued anything down yet and I have to get pictures printed to put on the pages. But here are a few of the pictures I took...

Once it is completed I will post some more pictures of it!

It's been forever.....

It has been forever since I have blogged about our adoption process so this blog might be very long. In my last blog I was talking about us trying to make a decision on which adoption agency to go through. I checked out a lot of different companies and I felt God kept bringing us back to Bethany Christian Services. So in November, Josh and made our decision to go with them. We contacted our caseworker and got things moving. We filled out our preliminary application and by Thanksgiving that had been approved. After our preliminary application was approved we had to fill out our formal application. Right before Christmas we found out that we had been approved for this also, so it was definitely a great Christmas present. We met with our caseworker and talked about the next step. We had to do our parenting classes which our caseworker said her classes wouldn't be available until April or May, but she would ask the other caseworker (the lady in charge of the African-American and Bi-racial adoptions) if we could get in her class! When we left our meeting with her I was a little disappointed because I didn't want to have to wait until then. Meanwhile, Josh and I were to work on our Self-Studies (which seemed like a billion questions about our whole entire life!) So on January 6th our caseworker emailed me and said that we could get in on the other lady's class which started on the 9th. We were very thankful that we could go ahead and get the classes out of the way. We went to our first class with so many emotions. I was excited, nervous, and felt like we were getting one step closer to being able to receive our child! Our teacher was amazing....very funny and she made the class very interesting. As I mentioned before the lady that was teaching the class was in charge of the African-American and bi-racial adoptions. So she spoke a lot about this. When class was done Josh and I got in the car and I told him that I felt like God is wanting us to open our hearts to a child of any race and he said that he was glad that I said that because he was thinking about it the whole entire class. So we emailed our caseworker and let her know our decision! It is so cool to see God work in our lives through this whole process. It really seems like we are doing what He has had planned for us!! Last Friday was our last parenting class and I was actually said. It was nice to hear the families that came in and talked to us about their journey of adoption and it was nice to speak to the other couples in our class that are going through the same exact things we are. This Friday we are all meeting up for dinner!! I really hope that we all keep in touch to help each other as a support group!
I talked about the self-studies earlier and Josh and I finally finished them last week and overnighted them to our caseworker. Our next step is to have our individual interviews with our caseworker, which I am VERY nervous about. So the only other things we have left to do are our finger prints, homestudy and our family profiles. We can't do our homestudy until our caseworker receives all of our paperwork back from all the different places (doctor offices, background checks, etc.) and Josh and I are planning on getting our fingerprints done by next week. So the only other thing we have left to do is our family profiles (scrapbooks for the birthparents). I should add...that I am NOT creative...so thankfully my friends Lisa and Andrea are and they are helping me put my thoughts into this scrapbook. We did this over the weekend and have four pages down and six to go! But I am super excited because it is looking just like I wanted it to. Once I get it done I will try to scan some of the pages so you can see it! I promise to be better and updating this is just that so much happened so quickly. I have to thank God for letting everything go so smoothly so far and we are getting so close to being able to wait to be chosen as parents!

The Big Decision

So, Josh and I have been debating on which Adoption agency to go with. We had a plan that we would choose one by the first of the year. But I couldn't wait ANY longer....So we finally made a decision!!!! We are filling out the preliminary application today and sending it out this week along with a check! Hopefully we will get accepted! After we get accepted we have to go to an orientation and then we find out what our next step is! I cannot wait to see what God has in store for us and for our growing family!

So many questions!

Josh and I went to an adoption seminar a few months ago which was very helpful, but we had so many questions when we left. We are trying to make a decision on which company to go with. We are trying to figure out which company will treat us right and better yet, which company will treat the birth mother with great care? We have been praying hard that God leads us to the right one. Hopefully we will find the right one soon so we can go ahead and start the Home Study, which will be the next step!

Adoption

As a young girl I dreamed about having a house full of kids and Josh also wanted a big family. In October 2006 I thought our dreams had been crushed when the Doctor's told me I couldn't get pregnant. Then we realized, God had a different plan for Josh and I, and that we could still have children by Adopting! I was so excited about this! I started looking into adoption and realized it was a complicated process, but this is what we wanted to do. We have entered the adoption process with the attitude and opinion that we will be open to adopting a baby who needs a home. This baby may not look like us, but he/she will be our child, and we will be his/hers parents. The love we have in our hearts for this child is the same as if we had it ourselves. We know that God has already chosen our child for us, and we are just trusting that in His timing we will be united with him or her and become a family!