Tuesday, February 16, 2010

We Press On...

We spent the month of October that year filling out paperwork, getting physicals, having interviews with our social worker, getting finger printed, tracking down bank statements, tracking down copies of all kinds of things like our marriage license and birth certificates, proof of health and life insurance and etc. You get the idea! We were busy that month to say the least. We turned in everything and our social worker approved us to adopt. Now we just had to wait to be accepted and approved by the agency in Texas and be invited to their next orientation weekend. We were approved by the agency and got a call in November letting us know that the next orientation weekend would be the first weekend in December. Abrazo Adoption Agency is located in San Antonio so it would mean we had to fly there for the weekend. The orientation was Friday night and all day Saturday. We began praying that it would work out for us to go. Those of you that are familiar with residency....there is no "taking off a weekend here and there" for any reason really. It just doesn't happen. So, we knew it would take a small miracle for it to work out with Stephen's work schedule.

Well, God still works miracles and He was able to work it out for us to go. Stephen had to work 27 days straight in the ICU that month to get that 3 days off but he did it! Even financially God worked it out....one family member paid for our plane tickets, another our hotel and rental car. It was all coming together and we were so excited. The agency told us to bring pictures with us because we would begin working on our scrapbook there. I started gathering pictures and remember thinking as I was looking at all of them....we're about to be taking pictures and there will be 3 of us in them. It won't be just the two of us anymore. I began thinking about what our child would look like and be like. It was so fun to really start dreaming about our baby!

So, we packed our bags and went to San Antonio for an amazing orientation weekend!

To be continued...

Friday, February 12, 2010

God will make a way!

As we began filling out our piles and piles of paperwork we realized that the first big step to the adoption process was to have a home study done. This is when a social worker does multiple interviews with you, comes to your house for a tour,(and to make sure you are not growing weed or something in your backyard-Sorry! You have to have a sense of humor about the process!)acquires letters of reference from family and friends, obtains medical records to make sure you are healthy, does a background check on you to make sure you are not a felon, and several other things that I am forgetting right now. I called to make an appointment with a social worker for a couple of weeks out to complete our first interview and get started with the process. As we were ending the conversation she says, "Oh, and my fee is due on the first interview and it's one thousand dollars."

I thought, "Okay Lord. I know you said to trust you so here it goes! If this is really going to all happen then where is that one thousand dollars going to come from?" It's just such a leap of faith when you know God wants you to do something yet there seems to be this huge gap standing in the way. I am going into the details about the finances because it is important and is part of our story....it just shows how much God's hand was on all the details of our adoption. So, I'm checking the mail a few days after making the appointment with the social worker and there was a card from all of my girlfriends in Johnson City. When Stephen was in med school and we lived in Johnson City I led a Bible Study in my home for med school wives and there were 10 of us who were in that group. Oh how I miss those girls! Anyway, I digress. It was a sympathy card and I was getting lots of those but this one was different. Part of it read, "All of the girls say send their love and hope this helps some. We all felt this was the perfect way to reach out to you during this time, especially since we were all together at the beginning of this long road. We all pray that this is a swift and smooth process and that you and Stephen have a baby in your hearts and home soon. We all love you so much!" You see all these girls wanted to donate money to our baby fund in honor of my mom. In this card there were checks from all of them and the total was...wait for it....$1,000!!!

This was huge for us because it totally confirmed that God was going to give us a baby and He was going to provide the means to do so! I remember crying and calling Stephen to give him good news for a change. News that God is good. News that HE IS IN CONTROL. News that we are going to bring a child into our home and HE WILL make a way for us!!

To be continued...