Our Journey towards Parenting!

So I really suck at updating this thing! As the post says, Jeremiah is here! But let me back track a bit! Our pregnancy was really a breeze! We always said that we knew God gave us the pregnancy because of how easy things went. I never had morning sickness, my blood and urine numbers were always great, I only gained 6 pounds, and never had any of the things that they test you for. Last time I updated, we didn't even know that Jeremiah was a boy. I had a gut feeling that he was a boy, but Matt was holding out for a girl. On June 26th, we got to have the gender scan. My favorite thing about pregnancy was getting to have ultrasounds! The tech took her time taking measurements and showing us all the parts...4 chamber heart, hands, feet, head, tummy, etc, etc. Then when I thought she was down by his legs, I said "so, is that a boy?" She asked if we really wanted to know and I immediately said "YES!" So she found the parts, turned the screen and asked what it was...

So, by the name change in the title, its not hard to figure out- God finally blessed us with a baby! And not one through adoption. Our very own child through birth, just as our hearts had always desired. I am currently 21 weeks 1 day. We find out the gender of baby on Tuesday. Since there is a lot to say, I'll start with where I left up and work up until now. I know I neglected this blog when we hit our first stand still. Truth be told, there wasn't much to write about. And it was almost to painful. We never were allowed to pick back up even after two years. We actually found out that our file was closed a few weeks before christmas in 2011. They way it was handled was really cold hearted. Coming from a christian company, you would have thought it would have been handled better. All we got was a two line letter saying our file was closed. Not a phone call, not a meeting, not even an email...a two line letter. After we recieved that letter, we were devestated. We were pissed...

So heres the newest update. It doesn't take much to figure out that we hit our first stand still...our first waiting period...the first " please hold" moment....our first..whatever you want to call it. As most of you know, we met with Heather for the first time on December 18th and things seemed good. We had set up to do our individual meetings on January 22nd and thought we'd be procedding to do our homestudy and start our family profile, etc. We had even begun buying some small things for the baby and brought home baby things that my mom had for us. Well things don't always go as planned. I got an email from Heather on January 6th, saying she had gotten a chance to look through our file and had some concerns but didn't say what. I started freaking out and so did Matt. I emailed her and asked her what to expect and she didn't get back to me right away. It wasn't until Matt called her that she emailed me back. She stated that her and her supervisor had...

So we started cleaning out the junk that had already accumulated in the spare room that is going to become the baby's room some day in the hopefully near future. We also started baby proofing a few things in our apartment in preparation for our foster licensing. (For those of you who haven't been following our blog we have to become foster licensed before we can adopt) Christel brought home some things her Mom has been buying for our future baby. (She's been buying stuff since we got married three and half years ago LOL, she's really anxious to be a Grandma) So we looked through all the stuff that her Mom had got us which was really exciting....and emotional (yes even for me, I teared up a bit, lol). I'm getting a new tattoo on Jan 8th, its going to say "Jeremiah 29:11" inside my left forearm. This is to commemorate the beginning of our adoption process and my getting promoted to optical manager, both of which happened around the same time. So that will be...

A few months ago, I posted about a little girl that was up for adoption in michigan. We couldn't adopt her, but kept her in our prayers. Alexis had her first birthday in november, and is now learning to sit up on her own! I'm also happy to report, that Alexis's foster family, will soon become her adopted family! I know God has great plans for that little girl so please continue to keep her in your prayers as well. I will be posting my take on yesterday soon!

So, we had our first meeting yesterday with Heather, our case worker. She seemed really nice. When she walked out to greet us, she had a huge binder, papers everywhere and I immediately went to being overwhelmed. She handed us the binder and went through what was in it. Its ours to keep and we take it with us to our education classes. The first hour was spent going over papers..what we had turned in, what we needed, etc. She was impressed because we had everything turned in already (she said nobody ever has everything turned in at the first meeting) so Matt and I were pretty happy about that! We also signed a few more papers and got even more papers to fill out...I think we've killed about 100 trees with all the papers we've gotten already. The second and third hour was spent talking about us...how we met, what made us fall in love with each other, how did our families react,etc. I thought it was going well until she asked us why we were going through adoption. We explained tha...

So we met with Heather, our caseworker, for the first time today. She seems really nice but it was still kind of stressful. She tried to push us to go to the doctor to find out why, or if we can't have our own children. She said what if it's something simple, but what if it's not? It would be devestating for either of us to find out we were unable to have biological children. Heather told us she had the same issue but the doctors were never able to tell why she wasn't able to have children so I expected her to be more understanding with us not wanting to know. I was talking to my Dad the other night too and he didn't seem to get it either! Argh! Seriously its our decision and only we can be the judge of how hard it would be on us!! Okay sorry. Enough of my rant on that. She also brought up that there is some times some pain for adopting parents that they haven't been able to have their own children. Which we still haven't given up on having our own but it d...

Seems so far away, yet so close. Let the nerves fly now! December 18th is the day that we meet Heather for the first time. Heather is our social worker! I forgot to mention how fast things have been going for us. We turned in our application and it was approved less then a week later and were given the name of our social worker and that she would be contacting us in 3-5 weeks. Well, it took two days for Heather to email us! So far, I've only talked to Heather through email but she seems really nice and I can't wait to meet her face to face. Its so crazy to think that in August we were just thinking about adopting and now 3 months later, we are in the beginning stages of our home study! Wow!! I'm not sure what our first meeting has in store for us, but she did say that it would be at least 2 hours long! Since we live an hour away from Bethany, Matt and I are both taking the day off (its a friday, so three day weekend, woohoo!) We will be pretty busy with more papers between ...

We just got word that our application was approved! Our social worker's name is Heather and we'll be hearing from her in the next 3-5 weeks to set up appointments! It was really nerve racking sending out those papers, there was a fear in the back of my head that kept telling me we wouldn't get approved for one reason or another but I didn't listen to it. Its so amazing to follow in the path that God has for you. This is truly His timing and His desire for us! I feel like running around and jumping for joy!

Continuing on from the post about Alexis, I was ticked. Royally. It wasn't until God, in his gentle way, lead me to a song that got me through many other difficult times in my life. I had actually forgotten about this song until I played it on youtube. The chorus goes as follows... "God will make a way, when there seems to be no way He works in ways, we cannont see he will make a way for me He will be my guide hold me closely to his side with love and strength For each new day, He will make a way" Talk about God telling you it will be okay and that he is working in ways I can't see!

A few weeks ago, one of Matt's friends, emailed him through facebook about her niece, Alexis, whom was in foster care and was up for adoption in Michigan. We prayed, talked about, and prayed some more. It seemed like this is what God wanted. We made plans to upgrade to a bigger apartment, talked to Bethany, and still prayed. We were pretty excited to bring home a baby girl. But God said no, even though we swore he was saying yes. We talked to Bethany, and a couple others, and they said that it was basically impossible for us to adopt her. There were a lot of loops and holes to jump threw. So that was the first door closed. Then we found out that the apartment that we wanted to move into, was way too expensive for us, with both of us working. We wouldn't be able to keep our heads above water if I quit my job. So, there went that door. Then we learned that her current foster parents are getting attached to her, and are going to look into keeping her. Which is best for her. It was...

So we got our application on September 10th! I opened up the envelope and took out a pretty big stack of papers. We started signing and filling out papers...and realized, if there are any skeltons in peoples' closets going through Bethany...they will find them out! There were two stacks of papers. One stack had to be completed by October 9th along with an online portion. Most of this was just "sign here and date this." Pretty boring so I won't go into much detail about that. The second portion is amazingly huge and has to be done before our first appointment with our social worker. This included more sign and date here, but also had questionneers about your childhood, how you were raised, your relationship with your parent(s) both now and in the past, your view on religion, where do you live, whats your apartment/house like, whats your community like, how will the child grow up, what are your views on discipline, etc, etc. One questionner alone was over 50 questions! ...