Our Newest Korean Addition...

Okay, I'm sorry! I knew this title would perk some interest, but it's not what you think. ;) We actually were given this incredible gift yesterday and wanted to share it with you. Some friends of ours, who actually lived in Korea when they were young, had a lamp that was bought and made in Korea and they gave it to us! It has beautifully handcrafted wood cut designs and gorgeous ink drawings and Hangul characters (Korean Alphabet) done on rice paper. It truly is beautiful! I was so thankful for this gift, because every time I looked at it, I thought of our child in Korea and it makes me feel connected with him/her. More interesting though, is that as I look around the room, I saw nothing "asian" themed in our home. I mean, that thing really sticks out in our living room! :) But, I LOVE it! So that made me think of how that is what our child will be like in our family. He/she may look different, but they are LOVED! Our love for our Korean child will be no different than any other love shared between flesh and blood parents and children. So, I just love our little Asian lamp in our American home! It's a perfect fit!

Thoughts of an Expectant Mother...

Okay, so, I can't help but think (if we continue to stay on track), our child could possibly be coming into the world any day now!!! Bryan doesn't like that I do this. :) Well, he doesn't mind that I do it, but he doesn't think it is necessary to think about things that we can't know for sure are going to happen. But, I just can't help it! Maybe it is the motherly instinct in me, but I just have this deep desire to know what is going on with our baby every moment of every day! I know that nothing is ever guaranteed, but I would rather spend my time thinking about what might be going on and having a slight chance that I'm right, then not think of it at all just because I might be wrong. So, since I can't really know exactly when our baby will be born, I can have an "idea" by figuring out where we are in the adoption process and compare us to a typical Korean adoption. That would put our baby being born this month or next month!!! But in all this excitement, I do have to remember another important person...the birth mother. This is not an exciting time for her. Although I don't know the circumstances involving our child's birth mother right now, I don't really have to, in order to feel a deep respect for her. She chose life for her child! And through this life, hope was fulfilled! Adoption truly is a miracle and so are the women who chose that option! Please join me as we not only give thanks to God for our soon to be born baby, but also to lift up the birth mother in these times. Pray that God brings to her a peace that surpasses understanding, and that He will bless her life with an abundance of happiness and love!

No News Is Good News?

Well, I have to admit, the past few months have been torture! Like I have mentioned before, going into this adoption process, I expected delays, especially once everything gets to Korea. But from what I have read, this part of the adoption process should be pretty routine. Everything should have been on our way to Korea at this point! But we are still waiting. In fact, it is as if we haven't done anything for two months! Since my last post, we had to resend a new home study to USCIS. Even though, we eventually tracked down our last one at the wrong facility and got it sent to them, they said it probably came in with a bunch of packages they received from Charleston and they just haven't gone through it all yet. They said it would probably be faster for us to resend another one! Seriously? It had already been there a few weeks, and they were saying it would be faster to go through the process of resending another one (another 3 or so MORE weeks)? How many boxes could they possibly have that it would take them 5 or more weeks to go through!!! So, we tried to have our agency talk to them and try to get them to make more of an effort to find it, but it didn't work of course. So, that meant our agency would have to get everything all together again and send it to DSS again to get approved. Then they would send it to USCIS, and hopefully FINALLY match it with our application. Right now our home study is still at DSS and has been for two weeks. Even once our home study is matched, we still have another 4 to 6 week wait until everything can get sent to Korea! So, we still have a lot more waiting, and we haven't even got to the referral wait yet! I guess these are my labor pains! :) That same ache I have had in my heart when we were unsuccessfully trying to have a baby, is back again! Every time I think about this situation, my heart just hurts. I guess with the adoption, I felt like I had control and I was finally going to have a child, but when all this started happening, I quickly realized how little control I actually do have! Don't get me wrong, the pain may be the same, but in this situation, I have hope and that is what keeps me positive. I know I don't have the perspective of God, so I can't know what the purpose is in all of this, but I do know that He is working it out for our good (Romans 8:28). I often think of the line in a song, "open my eyes to see the things unseen," and I pray that one day I will know and you all will "see" why this is happening this way and be a true testament to God's glory! :) On another note, we are in the planning stages of our first fund raiser for our adoption! We are going to be doing a yard sale in our neighborhood (Charleston Park) on Saturday, September 11th. We will have it at our pavilion next to the playground, and have some refreshments, music, and maybe a raffle of some sort. So, it should be a fun family event! We will definitely need help with any donations you might have. So, if you have anything you would like to donate or would like to help in any way, you can contact me here or on facebook and we can make arrangements. I'll keep yall posted as we get closer and more details come about! Thanks for keeping up with us and for your prayers! Hopefully we will have better news to report sooner rather than later! ;)

An Unfortunate But Humbling Update

Well, it seems we have hit our first disappointing situation in this adoption process. I have always heard the stories of how frustrating situations arise quite often in the adoption process, but up until now, everything has been going so smoothly. We were informed yesterday that our homestudy agency sent our homestudy to the wrong place!!! And has been sitting there for a month! Yep, just sitting there! Days have been passing by, as this mommie-in-waiting aches for her baby, and there it just sits...at the wrong facility. This means essentially our adoption has been set back a month! I knew something was wrong, because I had yet to hear anything from the USCIS about our fingerprint appointment. So, after calling and emailing everyone, we finally tracked it down. They said they will be able to send it to them by next week! Next week!?! OVERNIGHT THAT PUPPY TODAY!!!

I am obviously struggling with my emotions right now, because on one hand, I am very disappointed in (almost down right furious at) my home study agency for allowing this to happen. Long story short, they said that in all the confusion of new rules from the USCIS, ours got sent to the wrong place. I do understand that rules change a lot in the adoption process, and I can imagine that is difficult to keep up with, but I just feel that they should be on top of everything. I'm pretty sure this is their job to get this stuff right. We actually pay them a lot of money to get this stuff right!

But then there is the other hand...and thank God there is the other hand, because this is the ONLY thing that keeps me from going insane. The other hand is, GOD IS IN CONTROL! As much as I want to cast blame on people and want to make things right, I have to know that this is all part of His masterful plan! I know it is easy to say that, but if I really think about my child, the specific child God has made for me and my husband, it could be that he/she is just not ready yet! Maybe God needed this delay, so that His timing would happen perfectly when our file is in Korea and we are next on the list and our child is next on the list and they put us together! Oh, how I wish I was there for that "God" moment! How humbling it is to know how much God is a part of all of this! Even in the frustrating times, God is there doing what is best for us! So, I guess I probably should thank Him for all of this! Seems like one step back, but it is really a step in the right direction to "our" baby! :)

Home Study Officially Approved!

One step closer to our baby! I checked the mail today to find a copy of our approved home study! Which means we are approved to adopt! We have finally accomplished a major milestone in this adoption process! I have been coasting through these past few months, waiting, not thinking too much about the adoption because there was nothing I could do to speed up the process. Plus, it seemed so much harder to wait when I was thinking about it all the time. But when I got that in the mail today, my my old feelings of pure joy all came rushing back! This is REALLY happening! :) So, now what? Well, we had to wait for our home study to be approved before we could send in a form called the I-600A to the USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services). The I-600A is an “Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition” and it starts the CIS process for our international adoption. They then make an appointment for us to go get our fingerprints done at their office in Charleston. Then we wait again for approval. We were told this process should take about a month. In the meantime, since our home study has been approved, this also means we are now able to apply for financial aid. We have been very anxious to make headway on this. We would really appreciate your prayers regarding this specifically because it is the next major milestone (in Bryan's eyes, it is THE MILESTONE). ;) We will be applying to every available grant that we are eligible for, as well as trying to do a fundraiser or two in the very near future. This will ultimately require a lot of additional time, effort, and organization on my part. And will obviously require much stepping out in faith and trusting in God with our finances. Please pray that I will be diligent in my efforts to obtain financial aid, and that we both rely on God's will throughout this important phase of our adoption. We love you all! Thanks again for your support! :)

P.S. HAPPY 6 YEAR ANNIVERSARY to my hubby! Might be our last until our little one joins us! :) I LOVE YOU BRY!