Can I just say that I absolutely love the adoption community. The support, encouragement, and love that flows from this very special group of people is unexplainable. We feel soooo blessed to be surrounded by and a part of this community.
With that being said, I am especially thankful for those that have gone before us and have been so wonderful and holding my hand along the way. Giving us an idea of what the wait will look like, preparing us for the visit, encouraging us, and keeping us in their prayers. I'm also excited to be meeting new families that we can connect with and offer what little advice we have. I am happy to say I think the Bulgarian Reunion will be even more memorable this year, can't wait to meet all of the new children, and families I feel like have become my own.
Just for a little update on our process....
We have completed our homestudy addendum and are mailing off our I800a Supplement 3 today.
Our Supplement 3 is a form not every family has to do but because we have a change in characteristic of child we are now requesting as opposed to what we were originally approved for, we must submit this form.
Hopefully once this is sent off we will have our updated USCIS approval back within 4-6 weeks and can mail that to BG. Here is the exciting part. Once it reaches BG we are simply waiting for travel dates!!!
Oh we can't wait to meet, hold, and love this sweet little boy whose picture has been shown off to every single person who is even remotely interested.
We have also started the process of converting his bedroom. Dustin is a lover of all things baseball, and our little boys medical talks about how he enjoys playing with balls, so of course it would only be fair to make him a vintage baseball room. Oh I'm so excited.
To go along with it we have purchased a 1000 piece vintage baseball puzzle and are getting ready to start our puzzle fundraiser. We will be selling them for $1 a piece. If you are interested let me know. Your name will go on the back of every piece you purchase and the puzzle will be framed between two pieces of glass to hang in his room. This way he will know the names of all the wonderful people tyhat were a piece of the puzzle to bring him home.
Tonight we are going to wrap gifts at our local Amazon.com factory which pays 5013c organizations $1 per package wrapped in a 4 hour period. Our church is allowing us to use their Tax ID number so that we can earn this money. I'm also thankful for a church that is so supportive of adoption. Seing children from China, Taiwan, and Guatemala in the congregation just blesses my heart.There are 6 of us going, and we are hoping to raise $300.
Our adoption fund is up to $5300.00 which is so exciting because this means our first trip is almost fully funded. We only need $2,200 more to go!! The $10,000 needed for our next trip seems to be the biggest mountain we will face, but we have so much faith that God is going to provide our every need, and then some!!
Lilypie Waiting to Adopt tickers
Friday, December 21, 2012
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
IT'S A BOY!!!
If you can for a moment picture with me a beautiful purple room with pink beding, green curtains, barbie doll houses and butterflies on the walls. Yep pretty perfect room for a princess. A bulgarian princess to be exact. Not so much for a Prince though. In fact unless we want a dress wearing bulgarian boy we will be changing EVERYTHING we had as we prepared for our "daughter".
Confused?????
Well let me lay it out.
Last year when Dustin and I started this process, we requested a healty little girl under the age of 4. We stuck by it and that is what we had a desire to adopt. We began to prepare even though we knew the wait would be long, we painted her room, decorated, and bought clothes (only at yardsales and goodwill though, we aren't crazy)!! We would see little girls and just adore their beauty and we would talk about the day we would see our little girls picture. Then one night in September I saw the most beautiful little boy I have ever seen. I clicked on his picture and marveled at how much he looked like my husband. I closed his picture and moved on because his gender wasn't according to what we had requested. We then requested the blind referral on the little girl we were later told went to another family. After that, I was talking to my sister-in-law who said "have you all even considered a little boy?" I said no, well actually there's this one I just think is gorgeous but I haven't showed him to Dustin. She asked why I hadn't considered him, and I told her because he was a boy. I was determined we were getting a girl, it's what we had set out after.
In that moment God began to change my heart. I went home and said these words to dustin "IF we were bringing a boy home this little boy would be it" as I showed him the picture I had looked at a month earlier. Dustin responded well and thought he was just as great as I had. We both agreed to just request some information on him and see what was going on. I couldn't get him off of my mind. We requested what we could, fortunately our agency had his file. We seen some pretty scary unknowns when we first looked at his file. Things that we weren't sure we could handle. We spent a week in prayer and just begging God to show us if this little boy was our son. As days went on we couldn't picture our life without him, in fact the medical became less and less scary. We received more information that entailed more medical information that wasn't easy to handle, but for the first time we felt unwaivered in our desire to bring this child home. On November 10th at about midnight, sitting in our "daughter's" room on a pink bed and we cried out to Jesus and knew immediately this was our son.
Monday we let our Agency know our decision and so began more paperwork. We had a few days to get it submitted because their time with his file was ending soon. We submitted everything electronically on November 15th and anxiously awaited a decision by the MOJ that we were an appropriate family for this child. We were given one month to get the original paperwork to Bulgaria so without knowing if we were approved or not we headed back to the Capitol. The dreaded Capitol that we had hoped we were finished visiting...but obviously were not. November 30th we mailed our apostilled copies to TOL with hopes that everything would work out. Still no word. On December 1st I went shopping and bought the cutest baseball houseshoes (pictures later) I've ever seen and told dustin "here's to hoping"!!
December 4th at 3:07 a.m. I received the greatest news ever... YOU'VE BEEN MATCHED...and P**** is on hold for your family!!! WOOHOO
A year ago we prepared for a girl.Today a little boy has melted our hearts and become a forever piece of our family. We have a lot of paperwork to change due to our decision to request a girl in the beginning but whatever it takes to get him home we will do.
Thank you to everyone who has prayed and followed a long with us. Our Journey is just beginning but we are so excited to be at this point!!! Keep up, it's going to be an exciting ride as we hope to become a family of 3 in 2013!!!!!!!!!!!
Confused?????
Well let me lay it out.
Last year when Dustin and I started this process, we requested a healty little girl under the age of 4. We stuck by it and that is what we had a desire to adopt. We began to prepare even though we knew the wait would be long, we painted her room, decorated, and bought clothes (only at yardsales and goodwill though, we aren't crazy)!! We would see little girls and just adore their beauty and we would talk about the day we would see our little girls picture. Then one night in September I saw the most beautiful little boy I have ever seen. I clicked on his picture and marveled at how much he looked like my husband. I closed his picture and moved on because his gender wasn't according to what we had requested. We then requested the blind referral on the little girl we were later told went to another family. After that, I was talking to my sister-in-law who said "have you all even considered a little boy?" I said no, well actually there's this one I just think is gorgeous but I haven't showed him to Dustin. She asked why I hadn't considered him, and I told her because he was a boy. I was determined we were getting a girl, it's what we had set out after.
In that moment God began to change my heart. I went home and said these words to dustin "IF we were bringing a boy home this little boy would be it" as I showed him the picture I had looked at a month earlier. Dustin responded well and thought he was just as great as I had. We both agreed to just request some information on him and see what was going on. I couldn't get him off of my mind. We requested what we could, fortunately our agency had his file. We seen some pretty scary unknowns when we first looked at his file. Things that we weren't sure we could handle. We spent a week in prayer and just begging God to show us if this little boy was our son. As days went on we couldn't picture our life without him, in fact the medical became less and less scary. We received more information that entailed more medical information that wasn't easy to handle, but for the first time we felt unwaivered in our desire to bring this child home. On November 10th at about midnight, sitting in our "daughter's" room on a pink bed and we cried out to Jesus and knew immediately this was our son.
Monday we let our Agency know our decision and so began more paperwork. We had a few days to get it submitted because their time with his file was ending soon. We submitted everything electronically on November 15th and anxiously awaited a decision by the MOJ that we were an appropriate family for this child. We were given one month to get the original paperwork to Bulgaria so without knowing if we were approved or not we headed back to the Capitol. The dreaded Capitol that we had hoped we were finished visiting...but obviously were not. November 30th we mailed our apostilled copies to TOL with hopes that everything would work out. Still no word. On December 1st I went shopping and bought the cutest baseball houseshoes (pictures later) I've ever seen and told dustin "here's to hoping"!!
December 4th at 3:07 a.m. I received the greatest news ever... YOU'VE BEEN MATCHED...and P**** is on hold for your family!!! WOOHOO
A year ago we prepared for a girl.Today a little boy has melted our hearts and become a forever piece of our family. We have a lot of paperwork to change due to our decision to request a girl in the beginning but whatever it takes to get him home we will do.
Thank you to everyone who has prayed and followed a long with us. Our Journey is just beginning but we are so excited to be at this point!!! Keep up, it's going to be an exciting ride as we hope to become a family of 3 in 2013!!!!!!!!!!!
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