Good News!

Soooo happy to report good news from Barker (our agency)! I spoke with them this morning and she wanted to cut right to the chase. She said she just wanted me to know that Bry and I (and a few other families that have been waiting the longest) were highly advocated for in Korea. She wasn't able to give me 100% confirmation that were still at the top of the list according to SWS (Korean agency) but she said that in every case that they have had communication with them and they reported back saying they would consider it, they followed through with that consideration. She told me she is not worried about it at all, and she even told us that we only had two other families waiting in front of us, making us 3rd on the list!! Just to reiterate, though, even though we are on the the top of the list (as far as waiting the longest), doesn't necessarily mean that they match in chronological order. They consider the needs of the children available first and match with families according to how they feel will best meet these needs. Or, if you are a believer, it happens how God orchestrates the matches ;)

She did say that the month of October would solely focus on getting 5 babies they already have matched approved for travel.  So there will probably be no referrals in October, but should start coming in November and December. She didn't know an exact number of referrals, but she did say that we should expect to be in that group of referrals! 

There were other questions I had, like about the rumors of a price increase, and the age of the children being referred now, but truly I didn't care! I was just so happy to hear good news! Plus, I knew that she would be bombarded with phone calls today and didn't want to keep her. She will follow up with more details about the trip and other information next week through email. So, I will keep you updated with that as well. :)

Thank you so much for everyone's sweet messages of support. Bryan and I thank the Lord for you! 

"Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good;
For His lovingkindness is everlasting!" -1 Chronicles 16:34

One Year Waiting...

Well, it's our Anniversary! Don't know if it is much cause for celebrating, but it's been One Year Today since our dossier left for Korea. At that time, we thought we would have a four to six month wait for referral. Funny how things change.  Please keep praying for us and South Korea. Two of the ladies from our agency are in Korea RIGHT NOW, and they are finding out critical information about the Korean adoption program and specific information about us.  We hope to know something by next week! In the mean time, I'll just be

Thankful Thursday: Summer Memories!

Summer is almost coming to an end.  So, for this Thankful Thursday I wanted to reflect on this Summer! As you know, our Spring was not so wonderful (made up of morning sickness and experiencing a miscarriage). But when Summer arrived, our spirits were lifted. God was so good to us this summer.  We were officially back waiting for our referral and we took lots of opportunities to pass the time! 

I'm so thankful for our Summer 2011 memories!

Celebrating with Friends!

Fun at Tuck A Way!

Family Get-Togethers!

Rejoicing Over Miracles!

A Thrifty Concert! :)

A Belated Anniversary Date!

A Much Needed Weekend Getaway!

"The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with JOY!" 

-Psalm 126:3

Thankful Thursday: Prayers of a Getty Man!

Thankful Thursdays are something I have been wanting to do for a while now.  In light of my last post and all that has been going on lately with South Korea, Bryan and I have felt led to pray even more now for our adoption. I have also felt that I should stop getting so caught up in the negativity around me, and start looking at all the blessings I have! I know that sometimes we can't see them, but often times we can. So, Thankful Thursdays is for that purpose. To encourage me to look at God's abundant blessings on a weekly basis and hopefully encourage you to do the same! ;)

Prayers of a Getty Man

I had several things happen this week that I wanted to write about, but today I wanted my first Thankful Thursday post to be on my nephew, Getty Page (Bryan's sister's oldest son, named for her maiden name.)  I love all my nieces and nephews very much, but Getty has always had a very special place in my heart.  For one, Getty was the reason Bryan and I wanted to start a family. Before I even became a nanny and fell in love with wanting to be a mom, it was Getty Man (his nickname) that really started it all! It was a camping trip, 5 long years ago, that we took with his parents, Gretchen and Brock, and his sister, Jordan.  It was cold and miserable weather that weekend, but I will always remember it as the weekend God inspired us to have children!   Below is a picture of us on that trip. It is of me feeding Getty while his sister, Jordan (or Jo Jo) was helping. He was only 10 months old then!

Today, Getty is a very sweet and tenderhearted 6 year old little boy!  Getty became aware of our infertility a little while back and since then he and Jo Jo have been praying for us to have a baby. Because we aren't around them on a daily basis, we were told by Gretchen that Getty had started praying this on his own when they would have family prayer time. It was so sweet to know that something in his heart was touched by our "situation" and he felt the need to continue to pray for us.
Back in February, when we discovered that we were pregnant, we wanted to surprise Bryan's family by announcing it as we took this photo. Most people reacted afterwards, but you can see Getty in the front row looking up at us. :)

Later, after all the excitement, Getty came up to me and confirmed, "You are having a baby?" and I hugged him and said, "Yes I am, and thank you for praying for me." That afternoon when we ate lunch, Getty prayed and with no prompting from anyone, thanked God for giving us a baby! It was such a special moment.

Since then, as you are aware, things have changed, and our baby is in heaven now. But Getty man still continues to pray.  Yesterday, Gretchen called and told us that Getty has been having problems getting sad and would cry when they drop him off at school. They have been praying with him over this situation for several days, and just yesterday he came home to announce that he didn't cry today! Gretchen told him, "That's great Getty, God answered your prayer!" To which his reply was, "But I've been praying for Aunt Monica and Uncle Bryan to have a baby, and why hasn't that happened yet?" My heart sunk when I heard this! Gretchen explained to him that God would give us a baby when it was the right time. How hard it must be to explain such things to children, especially when sometimes we don't understand it ourselves!  Since yesterday I have just been thinking about this and although it made me sad, I realized what a wonderful blessing this is! Even though it is very difficult to explain our "situation", Gretchen and Brock took on this challenge with their children. It is very easy for people to ignore, and I wouldn't find fault in them if that is how they felt they should handle it. But I'm so glad they did decide to share our struggle with them! Because now, when God gives us this child, not only will our prayers be answered, but Getty's will be too! What a wonderful way God is at work using our testimony to impact the faith of this little 6 year old boy! He will know that he can always pray for something and God will hear it. And that the answer to his prayers may not always come at the time we want it, but it can in God's perfect timing.  It just makes me smile to think about that and see more of the joy in this journey of ours!  I love you Getty Man! I am thankful for you today!

One of THOSE days!

Most days I do really good with this waiting game. Really, I do! I put it out of my mind and can often find myself looking on the bright side of things. I do enjoy my time with just my hubby and the freedom we have. Most days that works, but there are days it's still hard. This is one of THOSE days.

It's hard to know what's going to happen with our adoption. Our agency tries to assure us, and give us an idea of what we can expect, but, so far, nothing has been predictable. Rules, fees, and especially time lines, have all changed since we started this process! Yes, we knew getting into this, it was going to be tough and unpredictable, but some days it just gets to you! If you don't mind, we could really use some prayer over the next few months. They are crucial in us finding out some very important things about our adoption.

These are two things we would love it if you could pray for...

1. South Korean Government

From what I understand, right now, the Korean government is desperately trying to eliminate international adoption. Ideally this would be great if there was no need for it, but because most of South Korea is still not open to adopting these children domestically, that still leaves MANY orphan children without families and would have to grow up in orphanages if there is no longer an international program! There is so much more I could go on about what is going on over there, but instead of venting, I feel the best thing would be for me to do is just ask for prayer. Please pray that their efforts and priority would change and be more focused on these children finding lifelong loving homes (no matter what country)!

2. Trip to Korea

On September 17th, two ladies from our agency will be going for a week to Korea for updates. This opportunity will help everyone better understand these new changes that will be taking place regarding international adoption, and they will be able to give us waiting families a better idea of what we can expect. They will also be able to specifically ask about where Bryan and I are in the process. As of right now, we are still unsure about that, due to our being put on hold when we got pregnant. So, please pray that this trip would be successful in finding out as much as possible and for the news to be good (Specifically, our desire is that we find out that we can expect a referral this Fall)!

Please, please, please join us not only in prayer, but believing that God will do this for us!!! We so desperately want this wait to come to an end and have our baby in our arms! Sometimes it seems like it's never going to happen.

Thanks everyone, for your much needed prayerful support!

SO Ready for Fall!

I don't know about y'all, but I'm ready for fall! It's not because of the heat. Although it's been a scorcher, you will never find me complaining of the heat. In fact, Summer is my favorite time of the year! I'm probably the only person in the world you know that likes summer as much as I do. I actually went about 6 weeks with no air conditioning in my car this summer! I'm not sure why I am this way, but I do know these sunny warm days make me smile!

So, why am I ready for fall?


Could it be the leaves changing?


Pumpkin carving?


Thanksgiving turkey?


Cozy sweaters and scarves?


Yes! All these things are great! But what I'm really ready for is...

A Phone Call!!!



A phone call announcing we have a child!

Hoping and praying that this fall brings the referral of our long awaited little one!

New Blog

As you can see, I have a new blog! I have been wanting to separate my business from my personal life into two separate blogs for a while now, so I finally did it! Well, kind of. I'm still in the process of transferring all my old entries over and reorganizing my Getty Art Studio blog, but it should be done soon. :)

I called this blog Joy in the Journey because I want it to reflect my personal life journey and an awareness of the joy in the midst of it. Right now, my hubby and I are experiencing our journey to parenthood, and it has definitely had it's difficulties, but it has also had it's share of blessings. I have been inspired by this recent journey and felt God convicting me to be more observant of His abundant blessings and the joy available to me.
I am fully aware that life can be hard, and I don't doubt I will still have many days ahead of me and blog posts to reflect that, but my faith tells me that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord (Romans 8:28), so I believe there can always be Joy in the Journey, if you are looking for it! ;)

Adoption Update

I wanted to give everyone an update of what the latest is with our adoption. I was hoping to wait and get more clarity on things, but I thought it would be best to share what we know so far… Once we were no longer pregnant, we wanted to make sure that we could pick back up on our adoption. So, many phones calls and emails to our agency later, we were back to active status as of June 13th! We actually weren’t officially put on hold until April 19th, so we really were only on hold for less than 2 months. However, according to our agency, this does not necessarily mean that we get to be placed right back where we were in line, so to speak. It is the agency in Korea that decides these things. Barker, our agency here, explained our situation in email to them and had requested that they would honor where we were in our wait, (which had been 7 months at the time they put us on hold). They quickly received a reply from SWS (our South Korean agency), that they would consider that request. Barker thought that sounded very promising and was encouraged by their response. I, on the other hand, didn’t 100% see it that way. It wasn’t like a guarantee or anything. It was more like a “we will think about it” type of response. But to help ease our pain a little, we were told that two of the ladies from Barker will be traveling to Korea in September and they would specifically ask about us and where we were in the wait. Hopefully by end of September, we will know whether or not we got put back where we were or if we are starting over in our waiting. So, right now, there is no way to know for sure where we are in the process. There have also been other recent changes (surprise, surprise) to the Korean program. This is kind of a complicated thing to explain, but I will try to keep it as simple as possible. There are only a certain amount of international adoptions the Korean government allows each year. They issue what they call, EPs (exit permits), which basically gives the adoptive parents permission to come to Korea, get your child, and bring them into the United States. Well, apparently our agency has already run out of EPs for this year, which means no more referrals until the fall. Travel will then happen at the beginning of next year (February-ish) when the Korean government issues a new batch of EPs. There is a lot more involved than this, but I didn't want to overwhelm you too much. I know it is tough to understand this adoption lingo. ;) So, basically, at the earliest, we might be able to receive a referral this fall and travel at the beginning of the year. But like I said, that is the earliest. At worse, we could be waiting another few years. I am hopeful that we will get a referral soon, but at the same time, with all the changes that have been happening lately, I can’t help but be a little guarded. I am praying for God’s will and that I will be content in whatever that may be. On a brighter note, we received another grant! It was from a great organization called, Katelyn’s Fund. I submitted the application back in December and didn’t expect to hear anything at this point. We actually got the call soon after our miscarriage, and felt like it was such an encouragement during that time. We had an interview with a panel on speaker phone and each one of them prayed over us and our adoption. They were so kind to us and I felt so honored that they would give us a $3000 grant! It was such a blessing because my surgery after I miscarried cost us almost $3000. This money was going to be taken from our savings we set aside for our adoption, so God provided the same amount to cover it and keep us back on track for our adoption! So, as far as our adoption expenses go, we have enough to accept our referral and pay the rest of our agency fees, which was, by far, our biggest hurdle! The only amount we have left is basically our travel costs and expenses (around $6000)! If you haven’t realized by now, God is so good!

Trusting Him

To be honest, I have been kinda delaying in writing this post. Because, for one, I struggled with how much I should share; and two, I didn’t look forward to painfully replaying things in my head again when I just wanted to move on. But I knew when I started this blog, I wanted it to be a shared, ongoing testimony of our journey of becoming parents, complete with struggles and miracles. When God first inspired us to adopt, I knew this was going to be a BIG thing, and I wanted to document how He was going to make this happen. I’m probably the most extremely inadequate person to ever write a blog, as I have a hard time explaining things, my grammar and spelling are atrocious, and sometimes I don’t feel sufficient enough in my walk with God to be able to express how truly amazing He really is. But I feel led to do this, and believe, even in all my inadequacies, the Lord can still use me in some way to bring Him glory. So, after much prayer, this is what I felt led to share… It’s been almost a month now since we found out we lost our baby. On May 19th, we had made an appointment to determine the sex at a 3D ultrasound facility. Bryan’s mother and sister joined us to share with us what we believed would be some of the happiest news of our lives. Instead, it was the saddest moment of our lives. Our technician told us we needed to see my doctor because something was wrong. We eventually discovered our baby had passed at about 16 weeks. We were devastated, to say the least, and mourned the loss of our miracle baby that had taken 4 and ½ years to conceive. I experienced a lot of different emotions at first, but mostly I just felt sad. I don’t think I have ever felt that utterly sad before. I will hold off on much of the details, because it isn’t my goal to make you all feel sorry for me or Bryan. Instead, if possible, I would like to encourage you with what God has taught us through this storm. Yes, we were sad. Our hearts ached. We were confused and just didn’t understand. But for the first time, we chose to look at this situation differently. You see, Bryan and I have been here before. I don’t mean that we have had a miscarriage before or experienced even close to a loss like this, but we have experienced the deep heartache of infertility. I would have to say that although this miscarriage was the saddest moment of my life, our struggle with infertility was the hardest. Throughout our first few years of infertility, I struggled with my relationship with God. I was very angry with Him that He chose this life for me. He gave me a heart to be a mother and yet not a womb to carry children! I have cried out to Him with my face in the ground and felt abandoned by Him. My heart ached so much it physically hurt and I begged Him to take my life if I could never be pregnant. Fast forward (about one year and four months ago), God revealed something better to me, His plan for our lives...adoption. You have heard me say this before, but God suddenly opened our eyes to the world of adoption and we couldn’t look back. He revealed to us that adoption was not second best to biologically building a family; it was just as amazing, but in a different way. Believe it or not, we actually grew thankful for our infertility and considered it a blessing. If not for that, we would have NEVER considered adoption. So, you see, even though we were sad when we lost our baby, we could not fall into that pattern of self-pity and anger with God. Before we had ever become pregnant, we had already experienced firsthand that our plans are not His plans, and that His plans are definitely better than what we could ever imagine. We had to choose to exercise our faith and trust that God has a reason for this too. Yes, we miss our baby. More than I ever thought possible. Along with this adoption, we truly experienced a love for a child that we haven’t even met, and it’s heartbreaking to be separated. But I am comforted in knowing he or she is dwelling in the Lord’s glory and cannot ever be hurt by the pain and sin here on earth. I cannot forget the miracle He gave us in that baby we never thought we could conceive, and will forever be grateful that, if I never become pregnant again, I got to at least carry this angel for 4 months. We know we will, one day, get to hold our baby in our arms and spend the rest of eternity together in heaven. There is no doubt that life is hard and we all experience storms. But God is able to comfort you and can bring you peace when you never thought it was possible. The Bible says in Proverbs 3:5 for us to, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding…” We are so limited in our view here on earth. We can’t see the purpose in all things and what lies ahead, but God can. He promises us that His plans are good for those who love Him (Romans 8:28). So knowing all this, it is way easier for me to trust Him, than it is for me to suffer and wonder why. This is just my story, but I pray that God will use it to inspire you to trust Him as well. To all of you who follow our journey and are prayer warriors for us, thank you. I plan to keep sharing our updates with you as He continues to expand our testimony of parenthood.

At A Loss For Words

Today Bryan and I found out our baby went to heaven. We are devastated and heartbroken. Please pray for us.