Watch Out Adoption - Here We Come

It’s funny that the one of the last blog posts I did on here said at the very end, “We are now encouraged to go after what we feel will be the next step for our family - ADOPTION.” I apologize for the vacation I took from blogging. I had high hopes that this would document our life but life keeps getting busier and busier with two toddler boys. There is not much down time in our house which leads to a lack of time for mom to blog on what is going on in our family. 10 months from tomorrow we were getting ready to settle on our new house. The dreams of what this would hold for our family were starting to develop in our minds. We knew then that the next step for us would be adoption however we felt like we would start the process in the fall of 2012. Over the past two years we have bounced back and forth between what adoption looks like for our family. The main two options for us were fostering to adopt or adopting an infant domestically. Both are wonderful but each is a different path to go down. The final decision was made to go through infant adoption when we got hearts burdened for abortion. We realized then that if we were going to be against abortion then we also needed to be willing to support those women who have chosen life. I want to be the family standing there waving our hands saying, “We want to support you and love on you as well as your child. You are special to us and we value your decision for life.” My heart breaks for the pregnant women that are making these hard decisions. Each situation is different but I am almost certain that this is a hard decision to make and act on for every single one. Going through two pregnancies and being a mom now, I can’t imagine the pain, heartaches, and what-ifs that plague these women each step of the way. My hope is that we will be able to show the birth mom of our future child the love of our Father through our actions and words and that there will be a peace in her heart that we will love, value, and teach this child the best we can.   

Like I said before, Derrick and I have been in agreement that we would start the adoption process in September of 2012 but this stirring was rising up in my heart questioning whether we should start earlier. After my “busy season” wrapped up with work, my mind had more and more time to sit and dream of our adoptive daughter. We started pulling ideas together of ways to fundraise and talking more and more about our future adoption. I believe it was sometime in late March or early April that I started praying to the Lord about our adoption timeline and asked for a sign. My best friend had done the same when they started their second adoption process and I thought it would be a great way for me to know whether we were supposed to start earlier than September 1^st or to sit and wait until that time arrived. I requested from the Lord that we would somehow get $1,000 which would indicate to us that we should start the process earlier. I didn’t sure this amount with anyone for a number of weeks. Honestly in my head I thought I was being unreasonable with my request and questioned whether I should really expect $1,000 to be given to us. This was one of the many times that I underestimate God and what He can do. The last Sunday of April I was praying during worship at our church and I asked the Lord that if this adoption was to start out earlier that Derrick and I would be in agreement. I didn’t want to be pushing Derrick to start earlier than what he felt comfortable with and I didn’t want him pushing me into it either. I told Derrick about this and we both still felt like September 1^st was the timeline.

A few weeks later on the Wednesday before my 30^th birthday we went over to our best friend’s house for our weekly family dinner time. Before dessert Lauren told me she wanted to give me my gifts. I opened a box of wine glasses and another box that had a cute dress and headband in it. The last gift she handed me included 2 boxes. The first box read “Since we didn’t plan a party to celebrate you on your 30^th birthday, we wanted to find another way to tell you how special you are. So, we set a goal of getting at least 30 friends and family members to express their love and appreciation for you to encourage you and to support you as you turned the “BIG 3-0.”” I opened a box full of cards of encouragement which made me smile. I sit the box aside but was eager to dive into the box and read every single card later that night when I got home.

I was then handed a second box which said “We asked those very same people if they would be willing to give you a gift…” I opened the box to a pile of money and checks. The inside of the box said, “We asked them to consider giving $30 to your adoption fund in honor of your 30^th birthday. Instead they gave even more. Grand Total: $5,000!!”

I was completely shocked as was Derrick. He had no idea that they had been planning this gift since March. Does March ring a bell at all? It was close to the same time that I was asking God for a sign. Lauren’s initial goal was $1,000, the exact same amount that I had been praying for but in the end $5,000 had been given. The first words out of Derrick’s mouth were, “Looks like we are starting June 1^st.” The request that I had thought was crazy and unreasonable was provided and not only the $1,000 that I had requested but 5 times that amount. When you get a return on your request 5 fold how you can deny starting the process earlier. Thanks again to our wonderful family and friends who have already donated to our adoption. Your gift was priceless and part of the beginning of our little girl’s story that we look forward to sharing with her when she comes home.

What is our next step? We have started the application process which includes answering numerous questions on why we are adopting and what we will do in particular situations. We have already started making payments towards our adoption and expect another large chunk of money to be sent in by next week to start our homestudy process. Only the Lord knows how long it will be until we get the call about our little girl but we are excited and dreaming of this little girl that is going to come and help complete our family. I am going to end this post for now but will be posting shortly on a fundraiser we have going on right now to help raise additional funds for our adoption. We plan on giving all that we have to bring this little girl home but will need help along the way. I hope to keep this blog updated regularly through this process with fundraisers we are doing as well as updates once our little girl comes home. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or even have any ideas on fundraisers we could do. We love you all.

With Love -

Derrick, Danielle, Camden, & Jaxsen