Big News

Some of you already know this but we have an official announcement. We are going to be adopting a baby. Before we got married we talked about what we saw our future family looking like. Naturally that included children. We took for granted that when we were ready to have them, that we would simply have them. Ha ha! Not so. After we were married we talked about having children and had a very "if it happens, it happens" attitude. Well, it didn't happen. And it kept not happening every month. After several months of unsuccessful attempts we sought the advice of a doctor. The treatments we went through were also unsuccessful and quite frankly, our hearts were not into it. We began to focus our prayers on what God would have us do, and He began speaking to us about adoption. Once the Lord began speaking to us about this we met four couples in our church in a matter of a couple weeks who all had adopted children. It seemed as though God was trying to tell us something and He wasn't particularly discreet. We got the hint.

We began searching the multitude of adoption agencies for a good fit. Initially we settled on a local agency called Christian Adoption Services. The preliminary application was long but we muddled through it. This was followed by the formal application which was even longer. After reviewing their formal application we noticed several red flags that caused us to put the breaks on the entire process. We were both so discouraged and began to lose hope.

Several weeks later Kelly was talking with her cousin, Sarah, about how difficult it was to walk away. Sarah encouraged us to do a little bit more research and try to find an agency that was a better fit. That's exactly what we did. Kelly came across Adoption Network Law Center (ANLC) and contacted them immediately. Their application process was more streamlined and the people there could not have been nicer or more helpful. We knew this was the way we wanted to go.

Within the past week we have submitted our application and fees and contacted the home study people for an expedited home study review. This process should be completed in the next two weeks and we will begin what we anticipate to be the most difficult part, waiting for a birthmother to choose us. In the meantime, we have been asked to get ready for a baby as the process to be matched could potentially be very short. Couples like us who do not specify a gender or race can be matched within a matter of days. Although we don't necessarily think that will be the case here, we do want to be ready when it comes.

Each day seems to bring yet another challenge in the form of paperwork or money or questions. We have been encouraged by the support of our friends and family and just ask for your continued prayers as we move through this process. We are both so very excited about what the future holds for us and evn more excited to see what else God has in store for us.