Happy Friday Eve, friends!!
So, today, I am soooooo excited to be joining an Adoption Talk link-up for the first time now that we are on the road to becoming an adoptive family...thank the Lord, the paper chase is just days from over! Hallelujah!
The prompt for today was "Memories," so I thought I'd take a little walk down memory lane and share a little bit more of how we got here since we are basically now at the one year anniversary of feeling the call to adoption.
In August 2013, we welcomed our second child, Kate, into our family. She was beautiful and an answered prayer, but she had a very rough start to life. We endured colic, a milk allergy, Torticollis, physical therapy, reflux, and basically ran the whole gamut of what could cause your baby to be...well, difficult. When people asked us whether or not we were "done" with kids, it was an emphatic YES. We were done with a capital D. (I'm sure God was laughing up there every time we answered that question...)
We had some family pictures taken just after her first birthday by my amazingly talented friend, Kristin. When we got the CD back, I suddenly felt this very clear message that our family was not yet complete. Every picture seemed to be missing something. This feeling scared the absolute CR*P out of me, so I ignored it and pushed it away for several months. We said we were DONE, didn't we?!
Fast forward to January of 2015 where I became downright obsessed with a friend's journey adopting a little girl from China. I mean OB.SESSED. Adoption had always been something that fascinated me, but I had always thought of it as a "Plan B." I didn't need a Plan B, I thought. I can get pregnant easily and already have two very young kiddos...why am I so consumed by this? I cried over her pictures, read her blog posts incessantly, and just fell in love with the idea of adoption. My husband finally asked what I was so emotional about one night when he walked into our bedroom and saw me crying while reading her blog (AGAIN) on my phone.
Everything I had been feeling over the last three months just came spilling out of me like a volcanic eruption. I literally just blurted through tears, "I think God has been telling me we are supposed to adopt. Do you hate me?!"
My husband laughed, and although he was visibly thrown by the serious curveball I had just thrown, he hugged me, and we talked for a long time. He agreed to pray, and we didn't talk about it for quite some time. Several months later, we both fully committed to this road and growing our family after hearing from an absolutely amazing family at church who was very active in the foster care and adoption system in Texas. We knew this was our path.
When we said yes to adoption for our family, our daughter was not even two, so we waited for quite some time before pulling the trigger and submitting the application. In the mean time, we saved like crazy, did lots of research, and talked to as many adoptive families as humanly possible. After much research, prayer, and wise counsel, we agreed that the China Waiting Child Program was our best fit. You can read our story of why we chose China HERE. We applied to adopt just after Kate turned two, and you can see our announcement HERE.
After many months of paper chasing, we are now just days away from having our dossier in China and (hopefully) getting closer every day to that referral call. The waiting has been hard, but we know that this is a season and that things will happen when they are meant to happen.
It's been quite a ride it's been so far...and in so many ways, it hasn't even truly begun! We are so hopeful that 2016 is the year we will meet our son.
Thanks for joining us on this wild journey!
So, today, I am soooooo excited to be joining an Adoption Talk link-up for the first time now that we are on the road to becoming an adoptive family...thank the Lord, the paper chase is just days from over! Hallelujah!
The prompt for today was "Memories," so I thought I'd take a little walk down memory lane and share a little bit more of how we got here since we are basically now at the one year anniversary of feeling the call to adoption.
In August 2013, we welcomed our second child, Kate, into our family. She was beautiful and an answered prayer, but she had a very rough start to life. We endured colic, a milk allergy, Torticollis, physical therapy, reflux, and basically ran the whole gamut of what could cause your baby to be...well, difficult. When people asked us whether or not we were "done" with kids, it was an emphatic YES. We were done with a capital D. (I'm sure God was laughing up there every time we answered that question...)
We had some family pictures taken just after her first birthday by my amazingly talented friend, Kristin. When we got the CD back, I suddenly felt this very clear message that our family was not yet complete. Every picture seemed to be missing something. This feeling scared the absolute CR*P out of me, so I ignored it and pushed it away for several months. We said we were DONE, didn't we?!
Fast forward to January of 2015 where I became downright obsessed with a friend's journey adopting a little girl from China. I mean OB.SESSED. Adoption had always been something that fascinated me, but I had always thought of it as a "Plan B." I didn't need a Plan B, I thought. I can get pregnant easily and already have two very young kiddos...why am I so consumed by this? I cried over her pictures, read her blog posts incessantly, and just fell in love with the idea of adoption. My husband finally asked what I was so emotional about one night when he walked into our bedroom and saw me crying while reading her blog (AGAIN) on my phone.
Everything I had been feeling over the last three months just came spilling out of me like a volcanic eruption. I literally just blurted through tears, "I think God has been telling me we are supposed to adopt. Do you hate me?!"
My husband laughed, and although he was visibly thrown by the serious curveball I had just thrown, he hugged me, and we talked for a long time. He agreed to pray, and we didn't talk about it for quite some time. Several months later, we both fully committed to this road and growing our family after hearing from an absolutely amazing family at church who was very active in the foster care and adoption system in Texas. We knew this was our path.
When we said yes to adoption for our family, our daughter was not even two, so we waited for quite some time before pulling the trigger and submitting the application. In the mean time, we saved like crazy, did lots of research, and talked to as many adoptive families as humanly possible. After much research, prayer, and wise counsel, we agreed that the China Waiting Child Program was our best fit. You can read our story of why we chose China HERE. We applied to adopt just after Kate turned two, and you can see our announcement HERE.
After many months of paper chasing, we are now just days away from having our dossier in China and (hopefully) getting closer every day to that referral call. The waiting has been hard, but we know that this is a season and that things will happen when they are meant to happen.
It's been quite a ride it's been so far...and in so many ways, it hasn't even truly begun! We are so hopeful that 2016 is the year we will meet our son.
Thanks for joining us on this wild journey!
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