We are so excited to finally announce that we have officially started our adoption process! We have been on hold as we have waited for our Florida house to sell and after 6 and a half long months, we have finally sold our house today and have extra money to spend! That extra money will go straight toward adopting our sweet baby.
I have spent a lot of time researching adoption agencies and we decided on the agency we would go with. On Saturday, July 4 we submitted our application to the agency and by the following Tuesday we received notice that we had been approved. We will be meeting with someone on next Wednesday to receive our big binder of paperwork and information. We will also need to complete a home study which could take 6-8 weeks before we are available to adopt. Aside from that, we really don’t know what else to expect from this process but are excitedly waiting to learn about all that needs to be done.
Kristofer and I have finally let ourselves become hopeful and excited that we will soon have a baby - we will soon be parents! We have started looking at baby furniture and discussing how we want to decorate the nursery. All these things that we have been longing to do, we are actually able to plan out. After almost 3.5 years we are finally allowing ourselves to be excited, realizing that this is really happening and soon we could finally have our child in our arms. That is super exciting.
We pray for our baby often. Praying for protection, praying that God forms him or her in His image. We pray for our expectant mother as well - that God will give her comfort and peace, that He will direct her path and that she will help protect our baby until she hands him or her over to our arms. We don’t know who our future birth mother/father will be but thankfully God knows exactly who they are. He knows their story and soon we will be a huge part of their journey as we merge our lives together.
Nowadays, most if not all adoption agencies require adoptions to be open. This allows for biological parents to receive updates on the child's progress throughout their life. Each family decides exactly how open they want to be and they all come to an agreement about what kind of contact is to be expected. At first I was a bit unsettled by this. This is a very unknown area for us, so I began reading multiple blogs about open adoptions from both perspectives. We really do not know what our adoption will look like but we are trusting in God's plan. However open our adoption may be, we will have the opportunity to not only love on our child for all of our life, but we will also have the opportunity to show God’s love to our child's biological parents.
We know that this process may not be easy or as smooth as we hope; we’ve had our fair share of disappointments over the last few years as we have tried to have a child. We are thankful that we know that this is what God has planned for us. He has called us to adopt. No matter how long it may take, no matter the ups and downs we may face in the coming months in the end we will have a baby in our arms. A baby that was created for us to love, nurture and experience life with. We couldn’t be more excited!
So now continues the research of what to expect with having a newborn, preparing the nursery and purchasing all of the items that a baby will need! I have also started researching all there is to know about using cloth diapers - call me crazy but I’m pretty sure we will be going this route. I will also be talking to my doctor regarding the possibility of nursing our child. I have read a lot of blogs regarding this and there is a possibility I could produce everything the baby will need. Even if it is just a little, it would be something. There is so much to plan and learn and we are ready for this new adventure.
We are excited. We are hopeful. We are one step closer to having our baby in our arms.
