34 days

Today marks 34 day until we mail the agency our application!  It is coming up so fast, and we are starting to get both excited and nervous.

This month we have spent a lot of time around little ones, and it fills me with joy!  It is so amazing to see how God has transformed my mind and heart in this regard - infertility so often robbed me of joy in the types of situations we've experienced lately, and I am so happy to be moving on in my journey and beginning to heal.  A couple close to us had their first baby at the end of October, and they have been so amazing about letting us come over to visit and hold the baby.  We also got to babysit her when she was 4 weeks old, which was so fun.

Since then, Tyler's cousin and her husband have been blessed with their first child.  They are also adopting, and there was a lot of drama with the birth mother for several weeks after the baby was born, but the situation has been resolved and they have a precious baby boy.  Holding him on Thanksgiving gave me hope that next year we'll have our own baby to show off to the family.

Thanksgiving weekend was spent in Roswell, NM, where we got to hang out with Tyler's family, including 6 kids under the age of 5.  We had a great time.  Everyone spent some time asking us about our adoption plans and learning about that process, and the support we've received from everyone is just amazing.  Also, watching Tyler play with the kids is priceless.  He is so patient with them, and he is great at going along with their games.  I know he'll be an amazing dad, and that he loves getting to 'practice' with our niece, nephew, and cousin's kiddos.

I can finally reveal some of the news I mentioned in our last post!  We met with the woman in charge of support groups at our church this week, and we will be launching an infertility support group in January.  We feel called to lead out in this ministry, because we know there are so many couples out there struggling with infertility who could use some support and somewhere to vent.  We're hoping to call it "For Those Who Wait" after the Fireflight song.  This song has a lot of significance for the two of us throughout this infertility journey, and we feel the name will give our group members a feeling of hope rather than despair.

Another realization that I had this week was the fact that our future birth mother could be getting pregnant with the child that will someday be ours any day now.  This is rather optimistic, since we have no idea how long it will take us to get through our home study process and onto the wait list at our agency, but I'm trying to bring more positivity into our journey.  Women who are becoming pregnant right now have due dates in August.  It would be amazing if we were placed that quickly after completing our home study, which we hope will happen in the late spring, around the time that I'm set to graduate.  How crazy is that?

That's pretty much all the updating I have for today, but I'm hoping to get Tyler to write a post soon, so keep your eyes open for that!  In the meantime, please be praying for our family, and for the woman that will be blessing us with a child someday.  We really appreciate your support!

Updates

Things have been a little quiet on the blog lately - this semester has been completely insane, so I haven't had the time or energy to update here much.  I do want to thank everyone for the thoughts and prayers you are sending our way as we continue to plan for our adoption - it means a lot more than you can possibly know.  If you have asked us how things are going, THANK YOU!  I love knowing that people are interested in our journey, and we love sharing each step with everyone.

The good news is things are moving along at a nice clip right now - we're still in "saving mode", but we recently got a nice boost - we found out that Tyler got a raise, which is allowing us to put an extra $200 into our adoption savings account every month.  This will help us reach our savings goal by February of 2014 - about 7 months ahead of when we thought we would reach our goal!  This has been an enormous blessing to us, and it has taken a lot of stress out of the adoption process for us.

Another thing we have been doing to learn about and prepare for our adoption journey is watching television shows.  I know it sounds crazy, but it gives us a lot to talk about and helps us to set our expectations when we watch these shows.  The two we have been recording are I'm Having Their Baby and The Baby Wait.  I'm Having Their Baby focuses on expectant mothers who are planning to place their unborn children for adoption.  The show follows them as they meet with their adoption counselors (not every mother does this, of course), chooses a family, and goes to the hospital to deliver.  Sometimes the mothers choose to parent after their child is born, while others go ahead with the adoption plan.  It is a very emotional show and it helps us to build a sense of compassion for expectant mothers - I can't imagine having to make that kind of decision, but I so greatly admire each woman for the decisions she makes for her child.

The Baby Wait focuses on adoptive families that reside in states where there is a waiting period after the initial papers are signed, during which the birth mother can change her mind and choose to parent her child.  In Texas, once the initial papers are signed, there is no waiting period, so we don't have to concern ourselves with that, but again, it educates us on how the birth mothers process their decisions post-delivery, which helps keep our expectations in check.  I would highly recommend either of these shows to anyone planning to adopt, or anyone supporting a person who is either planning to adopt or making an adoption plan for their unborn child.  It is an accessible way to learn about the process, and it can give you a lot of fodder for conversations to have with others.

We have some other potentially exciting news in the works right now, and I hope to be able to share that information as we process it.  Please be praying for us, and stay tuned for more news soon!

There are only 48 days left until we plan to drop our application to our adoption agency in the mail!  I can't believe how close it is getting - exciting and terrifying at the same time!