With arms high and heart abandoned
In awe of the one who gave it all
I’ll stand
My soul Lord to you surrendered
All I am is yours
~”The Stand” Hillsong
Hey everyone! Can you believe June is almost over?! I feel like ever since I had kids time flies by so fast, that I can barely catch my breath. The other night I was laying on the couch and Sadie came over to me with her little blankie. She snuggled right up to me. People, hear me when I say this, she NEVER does this anymore!! Lets be real, the girl can not sit still for more than 30 seconds. #toddlerlife, am I right? I relished every second of it, and caught this pic really quick.
And then I sat and sobbed for 5 minutes because she looks like a baby! A good reminder to enjoy every second of parenthood, even the poopy ones. {Sometimes literally}
Ok, I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about where we are in the adoption process, which I LOVE. If you know me personally, don’t ever be afraid of asking how things are going, where we are at, etc. I love talking about it, and it actually helps us not feel forgotten. With a pregnancy people can see an outward change, and there is an end date that is known with anticipation. With adoption, you have no clue when things will happen. There are times where updates are scarce, and nothing is moving along. It’s easy for people to forget about it. So, ask away! Anyways, here’s a little update of where we are at this moment.
LOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you haven’t already seen this on any of my social media accounts, we finally completed AND passed our homestudy!! And it’s in my hands!!
We waited for this moment for 7 months, and it couldn’t have come at a more sweeter time than it did. In the middle of a season where our family has been in deep valleys, this was a joyous reminder of God’s timing and faithfulness. Most of you know the fear I had going into this step. I knew I would need to be vulnerable with my past history of abuse. We were covered in prayer every step of the way, and we couldn’t have felt it more. God used those moments to allow others to see His redemption and work, and that was all I ever wanted. Those 7 months were filled with a new social worker after our old one suddenly passed away, redoing paperwork, lots of emails with “one more thing” in them, tears, fear, faith, and a whole lot of prayers. And now IT IS FINISHED.
So what is next? Now we are finishing up our dossier. The dossier is a bunch of paperwork like, birth certificates, marriage license, physicals, fingerprints, etc and needs to be certified, notarized copies of each thing. It’s a whole lot of pressure people, because if one little thing is wrong it has to be done again. With all of that we will file the immigration papers also. Once we have everything together we will send that to be translated and then off to Haiti it will go. Thats the big step before the much anticipated wait to be matched with our child. Woo hoo!!!!
Along with all of this comes a whole lot of fees, so we are currently applying for as many grants as we can. We had to wait until our homestudy was finished in order to do that, so we have hit the ground running with sending applications in. We are so thankful to so many of you who have prayed for us, bought bracelets, t-shirts, or have just felt led to give money. It takes a village to adopt, I truly believe that. Our hearts are so grateful for the ways our friends, and people we have never met have come alongside us in this.
I am so excited about a few things we have coming up soon! Dustin and I have decided to get a little creative, and I can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on in the next few weeks. We are still selling shirts, so if you’re interested click the “Adoption Store” tab above and getcha one! They’re so comfy!
More than anything we appreciate your prayers. This process can be exhausting, and we are so thankful that we have rarely felt alone in it. Our people mean so much to us, and we feel your their support each and every step of the way. THANK YOU!!
I hope you each have a great rest of the week! Catchya later!