Dear Reader(s),
I've decided I want these email's to be as
conversational as possible in the hope that you never feel like you've been
duped into reading a chain email (you must forward this email to 12 of your
friends by midnight or the sorting hat will place you in Slytherin!)
Plus, if I'm being honest, it makes me feel less awkward about sharing such
personal details about our lives. You, the people who love us, have
questions and we WANT to answer them. There's a fine line between sharing
and over sharing when it comes to adoption. Down the road there will be
things we simply will not share to protect our child's personal story.
However, we want you all to know as much of what's really happening as
possible. I sincerely hope that doesn't scare the pants off you. If
it does I can tell you that you're not alone. I've lost my pants on
multiple occasions already in this whole process. Maybe we can start a
support group...
News items:
The last time we talked we were preparing for
our individual interviews and the home study. It was a BIG
week. Monumental really. When our case worker, Allison, visited us at
home she was able to tell us that we passed! (insert a HUGE sigh of relief
here....actually maybe more like multiple gasps, flapping arms and fist
pumps.) We've celebrated by not properly cleaning the house since.
What does that mean? What happens now?
Is your house still dirty? Well, Allison is out of town
until the beginning of August, at which time she will complete the necessary
paperwork. Once we/she has the official paperwork ready we can begin
applying to agencies. In the meantime we are working on filling out grant
applications and working on our profile or book. The profile is how the
birth mom/parents choose you. It's between 10-12 pages long and includes
information about us and an over abundant amount of photos of you, your family
& friends, etc. Forgive the crude analogy, but it's basically our sales
pitch. The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach (also see pants being
scared off above.) Luckily though, we have an angel friend who's agreed
to design it so it looks like us and not a precious moments explosion.
Once we have our profile created, we will be ready to send our
information to different agencies - God willing, we will be at that point
sometime in September.
Here are a few questions we've been
asked repeatedly that i thought I'd share:
Q&A:
1. I ran into Mr./Mrs. Whatsits face the
other day at church/dinner/while snorkeling and your name came up....
I wasn't sure if it was okay to tell them you guys are adopting or not?
Go tell it on the mountain -
really we don't mind who you tell. The more the merrier. The
cool/crazy thing about domestic adoption is that you really don't know where
your child could come from. One of YOU could know someone, who knows
someone, who knows a woman who needs a birth plan for her child-to-be! So,
please tell people. We're flattered that you'd want to.
2. I noticed you haven't put anything on
Facebook/Twitter/etc about the adoption. Are you planning to?
We go back and forth. I think
at some point we will let the cat out of the social media bag, but that would
be it. In terms of updates, we plan to stick to email and eventually I'd
like to blog. Let us get passed all the grant paperwork and then we'll
blog it up!
3. What 'kind' of baby are you hoping for?
The church-y answer to
this is "the one God wants us to have" and, at least in this case,
the honest answer is exactly the same. We didn't put a lot of parameters
on it. Our only real specification is infant. We are happy with a
boy or girl and we will happily accept any race. That being said,
according to our agency many if not most caucasian families specify
they want caucasian babies, so there's a relatively high probability that our
child will be a different race.
4. Did I hear correctly that you guys are
open to TWINS? Are you both out of your minds?
Yes and yes : )
5. How can we help?
As I've said in the past, the
biggest thing you can do is pray. You have no idea how honored and
humbled we are when you approach us and say you've remembered us and our family
in your prayers. Truly, it's the most personal and sincere thing you have
to offer. Your prayers are just that, YOURS. That you would use
your words and time with our Redeemer - okay, I have to stop because I'm
sobbing.... You honor us with your prayers. There's nothing greater
you can give, period.
6. Are you planning to fundraise?
Most likely. Once we get
though the grant paper work, we will begin exploring our options. Not
sure exactly what that will look like yet, but we will keep you all posted.
7. How are you two doing with all this?
How are you really doing?
Right now we are good, really.
Not to say that it hasn't been tough at times. We feel like we had
a rough couple of years to bring us to this point so, we choose not to dwell on
the fear that this process brings. Instead, we try to focus on what
we can DO. We talk a lot about what we'd be doing at any given moment if
the baby(s) were with us. We talk about how amazing it will be when we
can introduce our new family member(s) to all of you! We went shopping
for a car seat and stroller the other day, which was an out of body experience
to say the least. Most of all we try to constantly remind each other that
our God is bigger than all of this and HE is in control.
So, there's the scoop for now. If you have
questions, feel free to email me.
Thank you for loving us so well,
Annie & KB
"But
I trust in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are my God.' My times are in your
hands." Psalm 31:14,15
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