We sent in our first big check on Dec 8th.....and still nothing....I think it seems longer because the first set of paperwork - the agreement, client responsibilities, and the grievance procedure - were all signed and ready to go Dec 1st. The check was even written! We just had to wait for pay day!!! I'm sure this will be the story many times over....welcome to waiting!
In the meantime I'm reading EVERYTHING I can get my hands on!! This is so similar to our first pregnancy it's almost scary. I read everything the library had on pregnancy, childbirth, parenting - all in the first 3 months! I've been crazy emotional too....and tired all the time...and my mind never turns off....SO similar to my past first trimesters....crazy!
You MUST read There is no me without You by Melissa Faye Greene. PHENOMENAL! It's a 500 page book and I read it in 2 days! In fact I finished it on a plane & I'm sitting there with tears dripping down my chin and the woman next to me is looking at me like I'm crazy. I quickly explained that I was reading the best hardest book I've ever read. It's the true story of an Ethiopian woman who starts an orphanage in Addis Ababa. She doesn't set out to start it...it just kind of happens. The book ends with stories of the children that were adopted from her orphanage and their families in the U.S. If were weren't already adopting from Ethiopia we would be now!!!
Lilypie Waiting to Adopt tickers
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
More crazy "coincidences"
God is hysterical!!! I'm almost laughing as I type this!!
What do you know - my best friend from high school - Rockelle Ruiter is 1 month ahead of us in their Ethiopian adoption process!!! How amazing!!! I'm so excited to share this with her. We were such dear friends for so long....I'm excited to rekindle that friendship!!!
God is GOOD!!!
YEAH!!!
What do you know - my best friend from high school - Rockelle Ruiter is 1 month ahead of us in their Ethiopian adoption process!!! How amazing!!! I'm so excited to share this with her. We were such dear friends for so long....I'm excited to rekindle that friendship!!!
God is GOOD!!!
YEAH!!!
The timeline
So here's what the timeline looks like - it'll be interesting to see how true this holds....
3-5 months for our homestudy
The homestudy is approved by the U.S. then it's sent to Ethiopia and approved over there
7-9 months until you have a referral - they match you with a baby
6-8 weeks until you travel
7-10 days in Ethiopia - Addis Ababa the capital of Ethiopia
We're requesting a girl up to 24 months old - our agency requires 2 years between the youngest child and the adopted child. Caleb will be 4 in January 2010 - that's when we're hoping to go to
Ethiopia!!!
I can't wait!!!
3-5 months for our homestudy
The homestudy is approved by the U.S. then it's sent to Ethiopia and approved over there
7-9 months until you have a referral - they match you with a baby
6-8 weeks until you travel
7-10 days in Ethiopia - Addis Ababa the capital of Ethiopia
We're requesting a girl up to 24 months old - our agency requires 2 years between the youngest child and the adopted child. Caleb will be 4 in January 2010 - that's when we're hoping to go to
Ethiopia!!!
I can't wait!!!
The boys reactions
Oh boys.....I just adore them!!! They'd been hearing us talk about the whole thing, but we'd hadn't actually told them what we were thinking of doing. I realized this as I was picking them up from soccer practice on afternoon - and thought - what the heck - there's no time like present! So I jumped in. I told them we wanted to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia - like Ivy - our little friend from soccer. Jack got a real thoughtful look on his face and said "I want to say no....but my heart tells me it's the right thing to do." I almost started crying! It was so beautifully put and thoughtfully said. In fact the next morning Jack sculpted a figure of a woman holding a little baby and he told me - it's you mom holding our little girl. I'm going to paint her brown :)
Sweet Gabriel - he wanted to know why we had to get a brown one, why couldn't we get a white one???
Oh Gabe - for that very reason! Our skin color might be different, but God loves us all the same!
Both Jack and Ben are (well, were) excited about going to Ethiopia with us. Jack had me look up how much a plane ticket will cost - $1400!! He's already figuring that his allowance for 16 months, plus selling a pig at the fair should do it! Ben was all gung ho until he found out you have to get a shot to go to Africa.....although he told me a few days ago that if it was just 1 shot he'd do it. I need to find out exactly how many it will be.....
Sweet Gabriel - he wanted to know why we had to get a brown one, why couldn't we get a white one???
Oh Gabe - for that very reason! Our skin color might be different, but God loves us all the same!
Both Jack and Ben are (well, were) excited about going to Ethiopia with us. Jack had me look up how much a plane ticket will cost - $1400!! He's already figuring that his allowance for 16 months, plus selling a pig at the fair should do it! Ben was all gung ho until he found out you have to get a shot to go to Africa.....although he told me a few days ago that if it was just 1 shot he'd do it. I need to find out exactly how many it will be.....
Step 1 - the application
So after a ridiculous amount of time online looking at adoption agencies.....I didn't make it to bed before 1 am for over a week! We settled on America World. It was the agency my best friend had gone through. It was agency that Steven Curtis Chapman went through - woohoo! and it they had a great info packet with a video and they were quick to respond by phone with all my other questions.
So the first step was to send in the application - with $250....so it needed to wait until payday - November 10th. I knew you could do it online, but I thought it would be neat to fill it out and take a picture of us putting it in the mail.....so we stayed up late one more night and filled out the whole thing - it's very involved!!!
Well what do you know....we awakened the next morning to "HELP - Caleb just poured a whole gallon of milk in his cereal bowl".....and the application was in the splash zone.....Matt looked at me with a grimace and asked me if I was "sure"......
Needless to say I used the milk soaked form to enter all the info on line....I wanted to take a picture of me hitting the send button....but no one wanted to take it :( boo hoo!
So the first step was to send in the application - with $250....so it needed to wait until payday - November 10th. I knew you could do it online, but I thought it would be neat to fill it out and take a picture of us putting it in the mail.....so we stayed up late one more night and filled out the whole thing - it's very involved!!!
Well what do you know....we awakened the next morning to "HELP - Caleb just poured a whole gallon of milk in his cereal bowl".....and the application was in the splash zone.....Matt looked at me with a grimace and asked me if I was "sure"......
Needless to say I used the milk soaked form to enter all the info on line....I wanted to take a picture of me hitting the send button....but no one wanted to take it :( boo hoo!
Why Adoption?? Why Ethiopia???
Why Adoption? Why Ethiopia? I think both of those questions were answered for us at the same time. It wasn't let's adopt and then which country should we adopt from...it was - let's adopt from Ethiopia!
The journey to that decision took some time though.....in September of 2007 Matt had an appointment for the ol' snip-snip....and 2 days before his appointment we pulled the plug! I wasn't absolutely sure that we were done!!! You'd think with 4 kids you'd know for sure....and we didn't! It was a very scary thing to go instantly from being done with 4 kids to now suddenly wanting to be pregnant again!! We were both like - yikes - how did that happen! We didn't try to get pregnant right away - it was more of we're not sure we're completely done and we darn sure better be before we make it final! The idea of adopting had been batted around - we'd watched my best friend go through it 2 years before adopting from China. But the cost was a GIANT issue and we felt it was too big to surmount given we were going to one income the summer of 2008.
So the next spring - Feb of 08 I told Matt I thought we should try to get pregnant. I didn't Caleb to be much older, but it would mean moving back to Washington during the pregnancy. I was thinking get pregnant in the spring so I'd at least be in my 2nd trimester during the move.
Poor Matt. He's lived with me pregnant....we'll barely lived with me...apparently I'm not so easy to get along with while I'm pregnant! ha! So with much trepidation and a resounding "if you truely trust that God will do what's best" ringing in his head we stepped into "no birth control land"....well needless to say God must've known our marriage wouldn't survive a move concurrent with a pregnancy! as we didn't get pregnant.
So the first Ethipian seed was planted at the Creation Museum in Kentucky of all places!!! Irregardless if you ever want to adopt - visiting the museum should be on your list of things to do before you die! It's fantastic!! But that's another story :) We stopped at the Creation Museum on our trip across the country from Staten Island to Colfax, WA in June 2008.
So at the museum we met a family with their 4 teenage "white bread" kids and these 2 gorgeous little 4 year old twin Ethiopian boys!!! It was the first time I'd meet someone who'd adopted from Ethiopia. The boys had only been in country for 1 month. The mom (I'm so bummed I never got her contact info) eagerly told me their story and I teared up through most of it!! I told her we'd tossed around the idea of adopting - joking that it was the only SURE way to get a girl! She told me that Ethiopian woman - of all ages - were the most beautiful women she'd ever seen! She was fantastic to talk with and without a doubt the person who planted the adoption seed in me!!! I loved the fact that because her boys were obviously adopted she got to share their story with me....I'd never thought of adoption as such a beautiful picture of how God has adopted all of us into HIS family....and what a witnessing opportunity! What an amazing way to build a bridge with people and share how much GOD wants to adopt EACH of us.....it was a day I'll never forget.....
But the seed didn't get watered until that October. We live in a town of 2823 people. We LOVE it!!! Colfax Washington is the most amazing place to raise a family. The boys are able to play all the sports with the public school kids and we jumped right into soccer. Wouldn't you know it! Out of 50 kids on the K/1st grade soccer teams Gabriel is on a team with a girl whose little sister is from Ethiopia!!! So for 2 hours every week we got to sit and talk with her mom about Ethiopian Adoption!!! I find it absolutely amazing how God lines up all the planets...just for me! It couldn't have been more clear if He'd sent us a handwritten letter!!!
BUT (you'll notice many of those in this post!) we still had the money issue. We're down to 1 income...although it's a pretty decent one....and one that God ABSOLUTELY has a hand in. We're purely commission based. It's an interesting feeling knowing that God himself writes your check!!! Talk about a faith walk!!! Anyway - the money was still an issue. So what do you know, Matt comes home from his reserve weekend in October and tells me "not to freak out." Well the last time he said that he told me we weren't moving to Washington because the Coast Guard had offered him his DREAM job in NYC......needless to say I started to freak out!
So he tells me that there's a very high probability that his reserve unit will deploy for 6 months to Gitmo in Cuba.......well I tried not to turn it into the next "bay of pigs" and listen with a very open mind...and not FREAK OUT! He said that he would need to go to Seattle April 1st for 2 months for the work ups (but he could come home every weekend - yippee) and then they'd deploy June 1st - Dec 1st........wow......he was quick to tell me that his income would be tax exempt because he was being deployed overseas....double yippee.....
So apparently our house is bugged. The sermon that following Sunday was on how Moses couldn't let God be God. He couldn't step up and let God work through him - he begged for God to give him a helper - Aaron....and forever after the nation of Isreal has been split spiritually and politically....all because Moses couldn't let God work through him. I cried through the entire thing. If God thinks I can handle Matt gone for 8 months - I can do it.....end of story!!! And Matt agreed that we could use the money to adopt!!! Every cloud has a silver lining right!?!??! Needless to say I continued to pray that God would get us so excited about the adoption that we'd still go through with it even if Matt doesn't deploy!
The journey to that decision took some time though.....in September of 2007 Matt had an appointment for the ol' snip-snip....and 2 days before his appointment we pulled the plug! I wasn't absolutely sure that we were done!!! You'd think with 4 kids you'd know for sure....and we didn't! It was a very scary thing to go instantly from being done with 4 kids to now suddenly wanting to be pregnant again!! We were both like - yikes - how did that happen! We didn't try to get pregnant right away - it was more of we're not sure we're completely done and we darn sure better be before we make it final! The idea of adopting had been batted around - we'd watched my best friend go through it 2 years before adopting from China. But the cost was a GIANT issue and we felt it was too big to surmount given we were going to one income the summer of 2008.
So the next spring - Feb of 08 I told Matt I thought we should try to get pregnant. I didn't Caleb to be much older, but it would mean moving back to Washington during the pregnancy. I was thinking get pregnant in the spring so I'd at least be in my 2nd trimester during the move.
Poor Matt. He's lived with me pregnant....we'll barely lived with me...apparently I'm not so easy to get along with while I'm pregnant! ha! So with much trepidation and a resounding "if you truely trust that God will do what's best" ringing in his head we stepped into "no birth control land"....well needless to say God must've known our marriage wouldn't survive a move concurrent with a pregnancy! as we didn't get pregnant.
So the first Ethipian seed was planted at the Creation Museum in Kentucky of all places!!! Irregardless if you ever want to adopt - visiting the museum should be on your list of things to do before you die! It's fantastic!! But that's another story :) We stopped at the Creation Museum on our trip across the country from Staten Island to Colfax, WA in June 2008.
So at the museum we met a family with their 4 teenage "white bread" kids and these 2 gorgeous little 4 year old twin Ethiopian boys!!! It was the first time I'd meet someone who'd adopted from Ethiopia. The boys had only been in country for 1 month. The mom (I'm so bummed I never got her contact info) eagerly told me their story and I teared up through most of it!! I told her we'd tossed around the idea of adopting - joking that it was the only SURE way to get a girl! She told me that Ethiopian woman - of all ages - were the most beautiful women she'd ever seen! She was fantastic to talk with and without a doubt the person who planted the adoption seed in me!!! I loved the fact that because her boys were obviously adopted she got to share their story with me....I'd never thought of adoption as such a beautiful picture of how God has adopted all of us into HIS family....and what a witnessing opportunity! What an amazing way to build a bridge with people and share how much GOD wants to adopt EACH of us.....it was a day I'll never forget.....
But the seed didn't get watered until that October. We live in a town of 2823 people. We LOVE it!!! Colfax Washington is the most amazing place to raise a family. The boys are able to play all the sports with the public school kids and we jumped right into soccer. Wouldn't you know it! Out of 50 kids on the K/1st grade soccer teams Gabriel is on a team with a girl whose little sister is from Ethiopia!!! So for 2 hours every week we got to sit and talk with her mom about Ethiopian Adoption!!! I find it absolutely amazing how God lines up all the planets...just for me! It couldn't have been more clear if He'd sent us a handwritten letter!!!
BUT (you'll notice many of those in this post!) we still had the money issue. We're down to 1 income...although it's a pretty decent one....and one that God ABSOLUTELY has a hand in. We're purely commission based. It's an interesting feeling knowing that God himself writes your check!!! Talk about a faith walk!!! Anyway - the money was still an issue. So what do you know, Matt comes home from his reserve weekend in October and tells me "not to freak out." Well the last time he said that he told me we weren't moving to Washington because the Coast Guard had offered him his DREAM job in NYC......needless to say I started to freak out!
So he tells me that there's a very high probability that his reserve unit will deploy for 6 months to Gitmo in Cuba.......well I tried not to turn it into the next "bay of pigs" and listen with a very open mind...and not FREAK OUT! He said that he would need to go to Seattle April 1st for 2 months for the work ups (but he could come home every weekend - yippee) and then they'd deploy June 1st - Dec 1st........wow......he was quick to tell me that his income would be tax exempt because he was being deployed overseas....double yippee.....
So apparently our house is bugged. The sermon that following Sunday was on how Moses couldn't let God be God. He couldn't step up and let God work through him - he begged for God to give him a helper - Aaron....and forever after the nation of Isreal has been split spiritually and politically....all because Moses couldn't let God work through him. I cried through the entire thing. If God thinks I can handle Matt gone for 8 months - I can do it.....end of story!!! And Matt agreed that we could use the money to adopt!!! Every cloud has a silver lining right!?!??! Needless to say I continued to pray that God would get us so excited about the adoption that we'd still go through with it even if Matt doesn't deploy!
How it all started...
I can't believe it!! We've finally made a decision! We've been praying for over a year on the direction to take in regards to growing our family.....who knew it would be Ethiopia!?!?! A year ago I'd have said it would be the "old fashioned way"...get pregnant and have a baby :)
Now here we are....yeah!! I can't even describe how I feel about it all....it's very similar to "popping positive" on a pregnancy test!! I'm giddy and scared and excited and nervous all at the same time. I want to shout it from the mountain tops - I'm going to be a MOM ....AGAIN!!! and then get to retell the story of how we got here....it's AWESOME! I feel so blessed that God picked US. We're going to have a BABY!! YEAH!!!
Now here we are....yeah!! I can't even describe how I feel about it all....it's very similar to "popping positive" on a pregnancy test!! I'm giddy and scared and excited and nervous all at the same time. I want to shout it from the mountain tops - I'm going to be a MOM ....AGAIN!!! and then get to retell the story of how we got here....it's AWESOME! I feel so blessed that God picked US. We're going to have a BABY!! YEAH!!!
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