I am horrible at blogging. If you still check our blog from time to time and are actually reading this, thank you! Before I continue I may need to go back and check to see if I've actually written certain things or if I just thought about writing them...
I was correct. I haven't said much at all.
Well, big news! As of about two months ago, our adoption expenses are fully funded! I know its not the news you've (and we've) been hoping for, but it is a HUGE step. Its amazing the way God provides out of nothing when you are faithful with your finances. That is a testimony that Sean likes to share.
We receive monthly updates regarding how often our profile has been shown to birth mothers throughout the month. After this past month's (November) update, I responded to our social worker to thank her and ask if there is anything else we could be doing or may need to be considering as we approach and pass the 12-month waiting mark at the beginning of the new year. She assured me that since we have been so proactively keeping in touch with her throughout the year and keeping things up-to-date that there is very little else for us to do. She actually also shared that she and another social worker we've worked with at the agency are both shocked that we have been waiting for as long as we have. Apparently they expected us to have been chosen some time ago. She said, "I really have to say that God must have a plan for you that includes waiting".
Times like this just cause so many questions to run through my head: What are we not doing? Is there something God wants us to learn that we're refusing to learn? We've been more than patient, haven't we? Does God not want us to wait patiently? Does He want us to want it more? Does He really want us to be parents? Were we mistaken when we felt this calling? Should we be going a different direction? It's difficult to find the balance between patience and expectation during this waiting time. We feel so strongly about the path we're on, but after all, we are only just "hoping to adopt". There really is no guarantee. Though, I suppose there are no guarantees in life ever.
For now we continue to take each day as it comes, keeping the phone close by, praying for our child(ren) and his/her/their birth mother and trusting that God knows our baby even now and has everything planned to the smallest detail. I can't wait to see what comes; it must be something amazing!
"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." --Ephesians 3:20-21
Friday, December 9, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Our Website
A few weeks ago our social worker asked if we would be interested in helping to pilot a new program that the agency is considering using with all of their adoptive families. We watched two online tutorials that were basically about networking and advertising yourself as a hopeful adoptive family. One of the suggestions was to create a website since today's expectant parents are likely so tech savvy. So... Here it is!
www.sean-and-heather.com
We would greatly appreciate you sharing our website with anyone you know. The more it gets out there, the more opportunity for it to be viewed by someone who knows someone who is considering making an adoption plan for their baby.
Thanks!
www.sean-and-heather.com
We would greatly appreciate you sharing our website with anyone you know. The more it gets out there, the more opportunity for it to be viewed by someone who knows someone who is considering making an adoption plan for their baby.
Thanks!
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Birthday Cake
Last Monday, July 18, was my 29th birthday. I'm not much of a party person, but I did ask Sean to get me an ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins. He said that after I asked him to get the cake, he was thinking all day about having them write some nice words on the top and wondering what he would have it say. He went to BR, bought the cake, and came home with this...
So clever. He always knows how to put a smile on my face. :)
So clever. He always knows how to put a smile on my face. :)
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Highly Recommended
This book was given to me by a dear friend when we submitted our profile last year. The author talks about how we are all adopted into God's family and how everyone can take part in caring for the fatherless in the world as well as his own experience as an adoptive father. One of my favorite bits of wisdom from this book is that "adoption is a past tense verb", not an adjective. In other words, the word "adopted" refers to how a child joined a family, it does not describe who he/she is.
I would recommend this book to anyone, not just those considering adoption as a way of building their family.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
"Any day" means ANY day
Most of you who will actually read this probably already know what has (and hasn't) been going on lately, but seeing as I haven't posted anything in three months, I thought an update is well past due.
For the past four months, whenever anyone asks about the adoption process, my response is usually something like, "We could get a call any day now," meaning that maybe the agency would call us to set up a match meeting with a birth mother who liked our profile and if it went well then the baby would come a few months later.
About a month ago we received a call from our social worker about a baby that had already been born. She let us know the possible ethnicities of the baby and brief medical information, and she asked if we would like our profile shown. My initial reaction was, "I'm not ready for this!" It was a HUGE wake-up call. I hadn't believed that our life could change quite so quickly. But this baby was already in the world. If this birth mother chose us, we could have a baby as soon as the next day. I had been saying it could be "any day", but I didn't realize until this first call that "any day" could literally mean today or tomorrow.
We said yes to showing our profile (the first time it had been shown to anyone) and went out and bought a car seat and stroller that very night. After all, if we were going to become parents the next day, we needed to be able to get the baby home. By the end of the next day we hadn't heard any news, but I was definitely more excited than nervous or scared. (Sean had been nothing but excited from the beginning.) It was a weird place to be, knowing and trusting that God would place this baby in his/her forever home, wondering if it would be with us or not, wondering if our lives were about to change drastically in an instant or stay exactly the same.
Over the next couple of weeks we received occasional updates letting us know that the birth mother was still making her decision. As time went on, I felt more and more certain that this was not our baby, but continued to pray for his/her birth mother and the life changing decision she faced. Eventually we learned that having her baby placed in a family that loved their dogs was of high importance, and since we have no pets right now, we knew we were no longer being considered and we later learned that she did end up choosing a family with dogs.
I feel like a lot of people think this must have been devastating for us to not be chosen, but really it wasn't that bad. We knew that if this was our baby, it would work out, and if this was not the baby God has for us, we would just move on. There are other things in this process that are by far more difficult to deal with than this "rejection" but I can write more on that later.
We've asked to be updated on the status of our profile at the end of each month, and so far, this has been the only time our profile has been shown due to factors that we have currently indicated we are not open to pursuing. However, we received another call today regarding two different situations and have said yes to one of them, so we shall see...
Whoever does read this, thanks for being interested in what's going on. It means a lot.
For the past four months, whenever anyone asks about the adoption process, my response is usually something like, "We could get a call any day now," meaning that maybe the agency would call us to set up a match meeting with a birth mother who liked our profile and if it went well then the baby would come a few months later.
About a month ago we received a call from our social worker about a baby that had already been born. She let us know the possible ethnicities of the baby and brief medical information, and she asked if we would like our profile shown. My initial reaction was, "I'm not ready for this!" It was a HUGE wake-up call. I hadn't believed that our life could change quite so quickly. But this baby was already in the world. If this birth mother chose us, we could have a baby as soon as the next day. I had been saying it could be "any day", but I didn't realize until this first call that "any day" could literally mean today or tomorrow.
We said yes to showing our profile (the first time it had been shown to anyone) and went out and bought a car seat and stroller that very night. After all, if we were going to become parents the next day, we needed to be able to get the baby home. By the end of the next day we hadn't heard any news, but I was definitely more excited than nervous or scared. (Sean had been nothing but excited from the beginning.) It was a weird place to be, knowing and trusting that God would place this baby in his/her forever home, wondering if it would be with us or not, wondering if our lives were about to change drastically in an instant or stay exactly the same.
Over the next couple of weeks we received occasional updates letting us know that the birth mother was still making her decision. As time went on, I felt more and more certain that this was not our baby, but continued to pray for his/her birth mother and the life changing decision she faced. Eventually we learned that having her baby placed in a family that loved their dogs was of high importance, and since we have no pets right now, we knew we were no longer being considered and we later learned that she did end up choosing a family with dogs.
I feel like a lot of people think this must have been devastating for us to not be chosen, but really it wasn't that bad. We knew that if this was our baby, it would work out, and if this was not the baby God has for us, we would just move on. There are other things in this process that are by far more difficult to deal with than this "rejection" but I can write more on that later.
We've asked to be updated on the status of our profile at the end of each month, and so far, this has been the only time our profile has been shown due to factors that we have currently indicated we are not open to pursuing. However, we received another call today regarding two different situations and have said yes to one of them, so we shall see...
Whoever does read this, thanks for being interested in what's going on. It means a lot.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
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