Where we are at now

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    We had our first meeting with the Social Worker for our home study. That went well. We basically answered questions or expanded on our answers in our packet. Her goal was to see if Jordan and I would be a good home to place a child with. 

Our study will be finalized by the end of June. We have one follow up visit with the Social Worker where they will give our home a look over to see that our home can accommodate a child. The rule usually is that a child will have their own bed or crib. We have the space so we are not anxious about that. 

Our next steps can vary and that is because it depends on where our baby will come from. Since we are doing a domestic adoption our baby can come from anywhere in the United States. 

Our options look like this:

Our lawyer, Paul, may have a birth mother and that would look like him showing our profile to her and if she chooses us we would meet with her and go from there. We would have legal fees and birth mother expenses. 

An agency or person could contact Paul that they have a child needing a home and we would go through the legal proceedings to adopt the child and have agency fees

An agency could contact Paul that they have a birth mother and we would see if we would be matched with her and if so we would have to pay the agency fees plus legal fees and birth mother expenses. 

An adoptive liason (Like Jill who was also our home study Social Worker) could contact Paul that there is a birth mother or child and we could be matched with them and we would have the liaison fees and legal fees and birth mother expenses. 
With all of the different options, we have to be prepared for all of them. That is definitely overwhelming at times since it is such an unknown of finances. We are saving and I am looking for work opportunities and doing my etsy business. It is crazy that we could be INSTSNT PARENTS or be waiting for 12-18 months.  

We have to be prepared to budget $15,000 – $21,000 (maybe up to $26,000) and that seems overwhelming. That is the budget we have been told to expect from the Social Worker. 


Please pray for us! We are so excited to be parents! 

An adoption that surprised me

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See if this sounds familiar to you:

Now a man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman. The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son; when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months.  But when she could no longer hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with asphalt and pitch. She place the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. Then his sister stood at a distance in order to see what would happen to him. 

Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe at the Nile while her servant girls walked along the riverbank. Seeing the basket among the reeds, she sent her slave girl to get it. When she opened it, she saw the child – a little boy, crying. She felt sorry for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew boys.” 

Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go and call a woman from the Hebrews to nurse the boy for you?” 

“Go.” Pharaoh’s daughter told her. So the girl went and called the boy’s mother. Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the boy and nursed him. When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son.  She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

So you probably guessed! It is the story of Moses from the Bible in Exodus 2:1-10
I pulled out every version of the Bible we had and all but one said “the birth of Moses”. Only one of them said “Moses’s birth and adoption”. How cool! A story I have had read to me and read many times, and I am still surprised by elements of it! ☺️
God has such a sweet plan for all of his children! Gosh how hard it must have been for his mother to give him to the Pharaoh’s daughter! That makes me have compassion for our future babies’ birth mothers.
That really encouraged me yesterday! I know as Christians we are adopted into God’s family and that story of adoption is all over the Bible, but with Moses going from his birth house to live in another just spoke to me!
Hope that freshly encourages you like it did me in the power of God’d Word. 😊

Musings of a relational adventurer

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i am a relational person. By that I mean, I love people and want to know people deeply and care for them deeply. This is also a great struggle for me because I have lived in many places and made deep relationships and then have left. I left for only practical reasons such as moving away for college, taking a 60+ hour a week job, getting married, moving across the country for a job twice…

In all of these situations, my friendships changed – some evaporated and some are still here but harder to maintain because of distance and some are even stronger. I struggle with the first two. 

I miss the people deeply that I don’t see regularly anymore or those that I had great convos with that I now don’t even know where they are. I wish it were possible to stay as close wth everyone I was ever friends with for the rest of my life! 

I miss California everyday! The richness of our friendships out there were undeniably deep and real! I ugly cried multiple times without thought of how I looked in front of them. 

I miss relationships from Tennessee too. Thinking I would be there forever allowed the freedom to just settle in and get comfortable with my friendships there. 

As I have written these words I am now aware of why I needed to get these thoughts off my heart. It is so I would thank God for my friendships, silver and gold to quote the girl scouts’ song. I have been questioning God why He made me so relational and yet have me be moved around in relationships so much but I just need to be thankful for the time I had with those sweet friends, continue to pray for them, carry them in my heart, and trust the Lord for where he has me.  

I am thankful that even though I don’t see some of the people that have had the most profound affects on my life (Wellspring), that I will be able to pick up our conversations in Heaven! Until then I am thankful for FaceTime!

Missed it by that much!

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What an emotional weekend! We were overjoyed at an email we received from an agency we were starting to work with in California. We were a really rare case for them because we told them we open to sibling sets and children 3 and younger and they mostly get couples interested in newborns only.

So the lady remembered us (even though we didn’t sign with them because of the move and expense) and shot me an email asking if we would consider this sister and younger brother. We said we were interested and she told us to send in our autobiography and a family photo. We got all of that ready and were asking her for what to do next. I mentioned in the email asking if we needed to get flights and she was puzzled and asked if we still lived in California. Our profile was not updated after we talked to them just after we moved. The birth father wanted only California families to be considered. 

While this was heartbreaking we are still hopeful. Immediately when this happened 2 Corinthians 4:7-9 came to mind:

 “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;”

We are soon to do our home study and have finally chosen a lawyer! We are very hopeful for this process. It will not be easy or without heartache, but we are undeniably excited! 

We are having a yard sale at the end of April and we are praying the Lord would bless it! Please pray for us too!

Babies

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Friends!

I am very excited about this particular post!  Jordan and I have been wanting to start our family for a while and have been looking into adoption for a year, but our job change and my knee surgery put a BIG HALT in that plan!  A huge part of that was due to finances, as self funded moves and surgeries are massively expensive.  And did I mention, we also bought a house???  We were pursuing adoption through an agency in California and the Lord really just kept our hearts coming back to the money issue and the fact that there are children here that are orphans too.  So a lot has evolved from our first initial pursuits.

We have learned a few ways to adopt:

1) Agency – this includes their liaison fees and sometimes their advertising.  This DOES NOT INCLUDE legal expenses, advertising, or birth mother expenses.  This route would be about $30,000 and up

2) Lawyer – this includes legal fees and advertising is flexible (meaning, not all cases require it if the child you are looking for is readily available or the birth mother chooses you from the scrapbook you put together and not some magazine) and their will be some birth mother expenses.  These cases are not always newborns and can be children of any age, but mostly under 1.  This route would be between $15,000 – $30,000

3) Foster to Adopt – The children are already here, the expenses are low, but there is a GREAT EMOTIONAL COST!!!  The more we have looked into this the sadder it is.  We have looked into this because of the money, honestly, but the fact that kids would be in and out of our home because their parents get 2 years to straighten themselves out is really gut wrenching!  We have a huge heart for the foster care system, but feel this is not for us right now.  We are open to this route when we already have kiddos, so that we can be a family for the kids that come in, but when/if they have to go, we would have other children to cling to.

We have wanted to make the move on this for quite a while, but unforeseeable events (job move, knee surgery) have halted us and deepened us into prayer and questioning our motives.  Honestly dealing with the shame of feeling embarrassed that all the girls who never wanted kids or who got married after we did are having babies and we aren’t has been hard.  But I can honestly say, I do rejoice when friends give birth because that is a new life into their loving family and for that I am thankful and joy clouds out all pain.  But for the girls who slap their baby in the face and call their child an ugly name and say they wish they never had them and then turn to see that I saw them, and I see that she has another baby on the way, for those situations, I grieve! It is hard to watch the sun shine in prosperity over the wicked people.  I can feel like Psalm 73 is really where I have been planted, and planted to bloom here I must, because, “for me it is good to be near God.  I have made the sovereign Lord my refuge, and I will tell of His wonderful deeds!”

So, all that to say, we are in South Carolina baby and this is an amazing state to adopt from!  We are going to go with route #2, which is a lawyer.  We are in the final decision making process between 2 people, since we are weighing who will be the best person to add to our family and be an advocate for all 3 parties involved: us, the birth mother, and the baby.

specific prayer: We are open to a child that is 3 or younger because we will be learning how to be parents and will need the practice with a young child and would love for them to only remember us 🙂  We have a slight leaning towards having a girl first!  (there is a little girl named Anna Kate who convinced me that having a helper is pretty awesome!)  We are open to whatever race because we are all made in the image of God and are all equal!  We are not open to special needs at this time.

Please join us in prayer and feel free to contact me if you have questions!  There is no shame or embarrassment here.  I cannot call a mistake how God has seen fit to design things and we trust in His timing and sovereignty!  We are thankful to be healthy and living, and if the Lord sees fit to never add to our family via adoption or natural birth, we will glorify Him always!

Tomorrow I am 28! 😊

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Hello void – long time no writing from me. I don’t know who will actually read this so it kinda feels therapeutic thinking that not one single person could read this and yet my mind is cleansed of these emotions…

Warning!!! Extremely raw emotion and couldn’t sleep all night so emotions are high!

So tomorrow is my 28th birthday… 28 is so not what I expected! Laying here on my couch for the 11th day in a row has really had me thinking. Having my knee injured and not being able to sleep well because of discomfort keeps my mind awake most of the time just thinking…

If you asked me 10 years ago what my life plan would have been, I would have told you getting a degree in ???, getting a job with said degree, hopefully married, have a house, kiddos, a dog, and it all be in Tennessee.

Some of those have come to fruition and some have not. I can so focus on the NOTs that I miss the YESs. Anybody with me? I hear a faint choir in the background agreeing.

Yes I got a degree, in History in fact – my least likely subject since in high school my idea of history was BORING since it consisted of writing definitions and memorizing facts. I got a job as a campus missionary that I did for 2 years upon graduating and loved every single iota of a second of it. During that time my hubby Jordan came along and swept me off my feet and we were married when my promised commitment of 2 years of missionary service were completed. I worked as a teacher for a year and then we moved away to California where I thought the other things would just happen naturally…

That is where the NOTs come in…

We do finally have a house but it seemed like forever (41 months) until we had one. Dogs will probably never happen since Jordan is so allergic and we like the idea of traveling on a whim and not worrying if someone can watch Banjo (my dream name for our not so likely dog)

Living in Tennessee was a valiant attempt for every month we were living in California. We tried and tried but every door was closed or would be open at too late of a date and leave us without a job for 1-3 years and not even a set job. Shaky to say the least of those “open” doors. South Carolina called and we moved within a week – everything we owned within a week! Still in shock! We are set up to be permanently settled here and enjoying the settling.

What’s left? Chill-ren… Kiddos… Little McDonnells!

To sum it up, they aren’t here. The 3 extra bedrooms we have are empty. And honestly, so is my heart. My tears are many and daily. At 28 I thought we would have 3 of our 6 by now but that is not our lot. We have names we like picked out but no one to give them to. There are no pitter patters of little feet. There is no one to read “I’ll love you forever” or “Are you my mommy?” because I am no one’s mommy.

Why?

Simple answer: I don’t know

For the past month I have been digging deep in prayer and thoughts and one phrase comes to mind, “what if we are called to be parents of no children?” My answer: that.would.be.hard That is not what we desire but that might be what we are called to be. And I honestly don’t want to live my life in waiting and be 88 and think, well I guess that never happened, I better start living now. That would be a wasted life and one that I would be ashamed of myself for living. So I am choosing by the hour and sometimes second to live the life that has been apportioned to me and not the life that has not.

And to be really honest, everyone’s life is filled with unique joys and unique sorrows and I will take mine because I trust in Him who is dealing out the lots.

I can so focus on the one NOT that I miss all the already fulfilled and forget how joyous I was when they happened – even our house which happened under 2 months ago.

So here’s to not another day wasted wanting to live in the life I don’t have but want. And here’s to wanting the amazing life I do have and count myself as blessed.

So, here’s to 28 and being thankful for what is here and not focusing on what is not here! Because looking at what is not here is like “standing on the edge of my property and looking at what all my neighbor has and missing all that is behind me because I refuse to get away from the fence” (quote from a sermon by a friend)

Happy Birthday to me! I hope there is cake! 🎉🎈🎃👻🎁🍰

Disclaimer: this post is not to evoke input about medical things Jordan and I should look into. I say that because I am sure your input would be out of love, but for real, right now I am not ready to receive it. 😊

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Lately

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June! What . A . Month! 

We went to Pennsylvania to see J’s baby sister, Amber, graduate from high school.  That whole week, i couldn’t help but think back to that time in my life.  It was when I did think I knew everything about life and just wanted to leave my small town and head for college.  Birdie (what we call Amber) is heading for college soon and I believe she will do well.  She at least knows her major and I don’t think she will switch like I did 4+ times.

Shortly after we got home, J had to headed to a work trip across the country in evidently what he described to be just like the town I grew up in – (on a street called Southern Lane – which I love – I never thought about it until people made the connection between my accent and my street).  I am so glad to have him back.  While he was gone though, 2 great things happened: I found a Sonic – haven’t been to one in 9 months and i used to go there weekly back in Tennessee. and the second great thing was running into a friend who was staying nearby with her hubby on a cross-country work road trip:

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I like the filter she used here.  I keep thinking about joining instagram but i will wait until i get an ipod touch.  I am saving up for that right now – my goal is to have it purchased before we have a baby so I can have all the photos done with their special filters.

Now that J is home, I have been back at work – I started a nannying job and had a dream job land in my lap yesterday – STAGING!!! Ever since i saw the movie “Leap Year” and found out that job existed, I have wanted to give it a chance.  So we will see what happens 🙂  If I get some good ideas or a staging opportunity in the next bit, I will post some of the pictures from it 🙂

 

A Visitor is coming!!!! eeeeee!

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A Visitor is coming!!!! eeeeee!

My best friend since we were 4 years old is coming to see us! I am beyond excited! This picture has such a sweet memory. She was blocking the door where I am behind it getting into my wedding dress. I thought this was a cute picture of Meggs 🙂 Can’t wait to see her! Counting down the days and my heart is welling up with all of the sweet conversations and giggles that are to come from her visit!