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!

Home Study Visit Complete!

I just want to thank everyone so much for your prayers. Bryan and I, once again, were shown God's goodness and that He is behind all of this. As you can imagine, this whole home study process can be quite intimidating. A home study agent has a lot of power (not that they hold this over you or anything), but the fact is that they can have the ability to prevent an adoption from going through if you don't seem fit to be a parent. Now Bryan and I never had a reason to believe that this was ever going to be the case, but if you know anything about me and how bad I am at communicating, you would see how I could be a little nervous. I'm alright with writing and explaining my thoughts as I write, because I have time to think about it, but usually, when people as me questions (especially during interviews) I have a tendency to "go blank" and even say the wrong thing. I always feel later that I could have explained myself better. I was really nervous about our interviews, but honestly, it turned out great. We were interviewed by a sweet and friendly married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Spence. We were very comfortable with them, not only because they were so kind, but because they were believers, and we could be very open about our faith (since that is such a HUGE part of all of this)! They asked us very personal questions, but we were able to freely share our hearts with them honestly and not worry about saying the "right" thing! Mr. Spence also prayed for us at the end and told us that they would continue to pray for us! What amazing people! This whole process was just a blessing and relief, and just more evidence that God has His hand on this whole process. This was a major milestone for us, so we went out to celebrate at Smokey Bones (I had a BOGO entree coupon!) ;) So now we just wait about three more weeks before we can see a draft and once that is approved, we start the dossier (Korean paperwork) process for Barker and then start looking into financial aid options!!! Below is a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Spence, who were kind enough to let us take a photo of them before they left. Thanks again for your prayers!

Diapers!!!

 Okay, so I know this is incredibly cheesy, but I'm sooooooo excited about being able to purchase diapers and other baby items! I always hated going down the baby aisle and would avoid it as much as possible, but now that I am "expecting," surely I could take a peek. ;) Bry and I were at Target the other weekend and decided to look at the baby stuff, since we had never been able to do that before, and I was grinning from ear to ear! What a wonderful aisle of happiness and joy (when you are expecting)! ;) But, anyways, back to the diapers. I have also been skipping over and not looking at the diaper deals in all the coupon blogs I read, but NOW I thought, what better time to stock up on really good deals before our baby gets here! And just recently there have been some really great deals! So, I just went ahead and got a bunch of different sizes, because I'm not sure exactly what size he/she will be when he gets here, but I figured I can exchange the ones that don't work if I keep the receipt. :) Below is what I got for $4 and some change!!! I love coupons!!! 

Can you guess which one is my favorite??? :)