Having the luxury of blogging

I am so excited that I now have the luxury of blogging about our adoption! I promised myself that I would get all the paperwork done and THEN and ONLY THEN start blogging. I have so many thoughts and emotions about this adoption, and I strongly suspect I will enjoy blogging. But I didn't want to use whatever precious quiet time I had to blog. I had to use it to get all of our adoption paperwork done. And I am soooooo thrilled that our paperwork is done and we are officially on the waiting list! It is an awesome feeling and it has made it all seem more real!

I am thinking right now of the people who will be reading this blog, and I should take some time to get everyone up to speed on our adoption. So for anyone who has heard all this a million times (Kari, Tammy D. & M., Brooke, Meaghan et al.) please feel free to skip this!

So the major formal announcement is that David and I are adopting a child from Ethiopia. We have requested a boy and he will most likely be 12 months or less when we bring him home finally. Jonas is a name I fell in love with early on in the "contemplating adoption phase", and it just has stuck. My friends refer to him as Jonas, as does Lucy, so Jonas it is. Hearing Lucy talk about her "baby brudder" is so cute it is almost painful!

For us, this decision to adopt cannot be separated from our faith. We both were raised knowing about God, and so as we got older and faced difficulty in trying to get pregnant, we found ourselves looking to God for answers. This was back when we were still living in NYC. We did not find a church home in NYC, and so when we moved to Ohio we started searching here. When I was just a few weeks pregnant with Lucy, we found our church home (Newpointe Community Church). It is a Free Methodist church, nothing freaky. We have just found that we can really understand the messages and that they are relevant to our everyday lives. Belonging to the church has helped us have a growing relationship with God and our lives are so much better now in so many ways.

Lucy was conceived in 2004 via infertility treatments and she truly is a miracle. Any birth is a miracle, but her birth seemed even more miraculous because of all of the hurdles that we had to face. It definitely helped us to really understand how God is in control and there is nothing too difficult for Him to tackle. He gave us the most precious gift imaginable.

When it came time to think about having another child, I saw an infertility doctor and was told to go about the same procedures as before. The difference this time was that I was attending church, was in a small group with other women from our church, was serious about pursuing a relationship with God, and wanted to be in God's will. I remember praying while waiting for the doctor to come into the room and asking God if I should do all this infertility stuff, and I felt like the answer was no. Before Lucy there was nothing that could've stopped me from trying to have a biological child, and this time I had no burning desire to do "whatever it took" (within reason) to have a biological child. I just couldn't move forward with it.

When we moved here we met Kari and Erich Bichsel very early on as they owned the moving company we used. At the time they didn't have children, and I was heavily pregnant with Lucy. But a few months later we ran into each other at church. This time we both had infants! They had just adopted their son Jack! Kari and I are now best friends and are in a small group together. I got to experience Kari going to China to pick up Annie and then the adjustment period when they came home. It is so obvious that Jack and Annie were supposed to be Kari and Erich's kids! Our kids seriously love each other and it just brings home to me how incredibly awesome God is. No distance or circumstance is too great for Him; He crafted this family Himself. My family has been so blessed by knowing the Bichsels and having them in our lives.

So I continued to pray for guidance about what to do about "growing" our family. In fact one time I was praying about this issue, and a repair man came to my door to fix the fridge. He said he was very tired as he had been in Africa. I asked him if he was there for vacation, and he said he had been there volunteering at an orphanage. HELLO!!! So here I was talking about orphans and God with my fridge repair man! Crazy!

Over time, we have seen that our infertility is not a mistake or a burden. We know that God could have gotten us pregnant many times, but He has chosen not to do so. We feel that God is leading us to adopt, and we want to be obedient. Adoption is not Plan B, if it is God's plan then it is Plan A.

We were thinking about adopting domestically, but it didn't feel right. One Sunday at church I felt God was trying to tell us something about the adoption; it was just on my heart in a MAJOR way. The last song is one that goes "I'll be your hands, I'll be your feet. I'll go where you send me." And I was just struck to the core feeling like God wanted us to GO somewhere and get this child. So international adoption was back on the table.

I had looked into international adoption before but was met with many obstacles and no country or program looked as if it would work for us. Every door was closed it seemed. It was frustrating. When I got home from church that day, I simply googled "christian adoption agencies" and the first thing that came up was Ethiopia. And the Ethiopia programs all met our criteria and we met theirs. All of the sudden this door was flung open wide and I just grew more and more excited the more I learned about it!

I did tons of research about agencies, and selected a reputable one and it is Christian too which is a plus. I emailed and said I wanted to get started and the first email I got back said, "Ok. Let's GO!" I got chills remembering that song in church.

So that is why we're adopting! We are excited/nervous/grateful/a million different emotions! It will take 4 to 6 months until we get matched with a child, so for now we just wait. And blog. LOL

I struggled with figuring out what to name this blog, and I must own up to the fact that I copied the title of Kari's blog for Annie. Please take it as a compliment Kari! Following along with your journey to get Annie and just knowing you and your family have been so instrumental in moving forward with this adoption. I know our friendship was "meant to be", and it just makes me so happy.

Ok, that is it from me for now. I promise that my future blog entries won't be so long-winded! Congrats if you made it through all this!