6 days overdue update.

Ok everyone, here is an update on the situation.

Our birthmom went and saw the doctor today. She has no indications that she is going to have this baby anytime soon. They are sending her for some bloodwork tomorrow and then they are going to start talking about the possibility of induction. I'm not quite sure when they would induce her. All we know is this baby doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon.

We were supposed to be on holidays with Justin's extended family. We were supposed to leave on Thursday last week and I'm really kicking myself for completely canceling our trip. I really wish we had still gone. Everyday feels like a week, I'm really feeling for all you ladies who went overdue with your babies! This truly is torture!

So we are still waiting. No need to ask if we have heard anything, because all of you are pretty much hearing the same thing we are.... silence. We will keep waiting impatiently for our little man to make his entrance into the world!

Baby update.

Hello everyone! I thought I would give you all a bit of an update on everything.

First, our fundraiser on July 10th raised us another $1711 towards our adoption! With that we are done fundraising! I want to give a huge thanks to everyone who has supported us financially in the past two years. With some EXTREMELY generous donors we have raised over $44,000 in the past two years! Thank you! With the exchange rate at the awesome place that it is, our adoption is going to be costing us around $50,000 plus travel expenses, so we are feeling incredibly blessed that our financial burden has been made significantly less because of all of you! So thank you!

We are still waiting for this little guy to be born! We are five days from his due date and anxiously anticipating his arrival. Today would be a good day to be born (it's my birthday) so that would be the best birthday ever! We have a hotel room booked from now until mid-August that allows us free cancellation if cancelled the day before. So everyday we cancel a day. Really hoping we can go soon!

We haven't talked with our birthmom again, but we have been told that she is really ready for the baby to come. We are supposed to get an update from the caseworker later today as she is meeting with our birthmom today.

We are getting super excited and hope that he doesn't go ten days overdue! I'd be losing my mind! I have three more shifts at work until I'm off for parental leave. C'mon baby!!!

This anticipation is crazy. Can't wait for the day that we can announce him to you all!

Thanks again for all the love and support. We have been truly blessed by all of you and we are overwhelmed with your generosity.

FUNDRAISING!!!

Hello everyone! I just wanted to do a quick blog post to catch you up with what's been happening with us in the past few days. We got to talk on the phone with our birth mom yesterday, which was so awesome. We got to know her a bit better, know what her interests and likes are, and we also got to share her a bit of who we are. She said she loved our profile and connected with us because we looked very happy and very family focused. This made my heart happy in that we were able to accurately portray who we are in our profile. The conversation went well and it made it all feel so real! She said she is hot and ready to have this baby. Florida is hot all the time, but apparently it's a hot year this year and it's been up over 40 degrees celsius! She is currently 36 4/7 weeks pregnant, and although we would LOVE for this little guy to come early, none of her other babes came before their due date. So we are just trusting that God's time will be the right time!

In the meantime, the cost is overwhelming and we are getting in some last minute fundraising. Thankfully I have people planning the fundraiser for me, as it stresses me so much trying to get people to come to these things. I hate feeling like a burden to people and money/fundraising stresses me out. But I want to tell you something cool. On Thursday I got up and did my devotions before I headed to work. I prayed and told God that I was trusting that he take care of the financials. I had a good but busy day at work. When I came home I brought in the mail and hung out with Justin. I opened a letter we had received and it had a very generous money order in it from an anonymous donor. So I just want to say thank you anonymous for your generous donation to our baby fund! God is amazing and provides for us, so we are trusting him to continue to do so. So in the continued spirit of fundraising I want to let you guys know of our final fundraiser coming up on July 10. It sucks that is is summer and I know many of you will be away or planning on doing other stuff, but I really pray and hope that you would consider coming. It's a supper catered by Charlotte's catering at 6 PM on July 10 at Celebration Church 3130 Renfrew cres East, Regina. Tickets are $25 adults, $15 for kids and kids under 4 are free. It's just a meal, no silent auction or raffles. We do hope you would consider coming and making this night a success! If you are unable to make it but want to support us with a donation, we will accept that too! Just connect with us by either phone, email or Facebook and we can set up a time to connect with you. Our paypal button also still works on the right hand side of the blog here, so if you'd like to give that way go for it!

We ask you continue to pray for us as we are nesting for this little one and as we anxiously await his arrival. You can pray for our birth mom that she will feel peace with her decision. Pray for our son that he makes a safe entrance into this world. Thanks for the love! We can't wait to introduce you to our son.

C'mon clock, tick a little faster!

Hey everyone! I thought I would give you guys a bit of an update since it's now been a couple weeks since we have been matched. Our agency has been so crazy busy, in the last couple weeks there have been 20 families matched with pregnant moms. It's so wonderful! But at the same time it means that they are super busy and at times the communication is lacking. We have talked with our birthmom's caseworker a couple times now, and we were supposed to skype with our birthmom yesterday, but unfortunately she had an urgent situation to tend to. So we are hoping to reschedule our skype for sometime next week.

To answer some questions as we have been getting a lot of those. Yes we do know details about the birthmom. For the most part we are keeping a lot of those details private as we want our child to hear about his biological mom from us, not from someone else who may not present the details the way we would want them to be presented. But what we will tell you is that we feel very confident in our match. Although no match is guaranteed until papers are signed after baby is born, we feel at peace with our situation. Our birthmom is not a teenager and this is not her first pregnancy. We feel that these details put us at ease as she knows what to expect and has done this before (not the adoption thing, but the having a baby thing). Our birthmom is also African American, so needless to say we will be adding some chocolate into our family! We are researching how to care for his hair and skin as it is so different than ours! Any tips from people with experience with the AA hair and skin type will be appreciated (thanks in advance)!

We won't be going down to Florida to get him until the papers are signed which will be two days after he is born. Once those papers are signed, she can't change her mind, it's final. We will be in Florida 7-10 days depending how long all the legal stuff takes to be finalized and what not. So now we just wait for a call that we can make travel arrangements to go get our boy. In the meantime we have a countdown on to his due date (33 more days!), and we are working on having another fundraiser. I don't have final details, but we are looking at having another banquet/supper type fundraiser like we did at the beginning of our adoption process. The date will be likely at the beginning of July. We would love for you to come and support us! Besides my house, the estimate for our adoption is the highest bill I have ever received (even without factoring in the CAD to USD exchange rate), so we would love to see you at the fundraiser! If you can't make it and want to give something our PayPal button to the right is still functioning! stay tuned for the details. I will post them when I have them!

I also want to just mention how excited and thankful I am to be sharing this journey with you all. Many people go through the ups and downs of infertility and adoption in silence. I have felt so loved and cared for in this process And I am so thankful that you all have been so loving. When we got matched the agency warned us about sharing our match with everyone just in case it fell through. But we know we would have that many more people loving on us if that were to happen. The amount of free stuff I have gotten in the past week is crazy. People giving us clothes, formula, and other baby items. We are just so blessed to be able to do this journey with all of you! So thank you, we are overwhelmed with your love and generosity. And we truly can't wait for all of you to meet our son!

My hardest task now is to not just sit and watch the clock. 33 more days, and it seems like that is so far away! We just can't wait to meet this little guy. It's been a long journey, and it now has an end date: July 22 (he better not go overdue, I'll be going crazy).

The best day ever.

So, yesterday was officially the best day ever. I was woken up in the morning from a call that came from social services.

Man on phone: "Hi, it's Kevin from social services. I have a child proposal for you!"
Me: "are you serious?" (Kinda yelling)
Man on phone "(laughs) I wouldn't lie to you about that!"

After a bit more chatter on the phone, I rushed out of bed and started looking for some clothes to put on (we have some friends staying at our house so I couldn't just run around in my underwear) and I called Justin.

Me: (screaming) "someone picked us, someone picked us!"
Justin: "what? Are you serious? I'm coming home right now."

My friend Kristin heard the commotion and greeted me outside my bedroom door and we shared a tear filled hug and celebrated that this was finally happening. Then as I waited for Justin to get home so we could look at the child proposal together, I called my mom and my sister and made them both bawl profusely while at work (you're welcome ladies).

Justin pulled up, we viewed the proposal and we have since accepted the proposal. Here's the scoop.

Our son is due July 22/15. That is 48 days from now or 6 weeks and 6 days. He is healthy and I already know he is going to be the most beautiful baby I've ever seen. His birthmom said she instantly connected with our profile and wants him to have a stable two parent family.

We are so excited, it still feels like it's not real and is still sinking in. But I can't say that I am going to have a son without crying. Yesterday was a very long busy day of running around and filling out appropriate paperwork, sending the agency money and phoning all our close friends and family. But it was the best day ever.

We will be planning on having another fundraiser in the coming weeks. I have no idea what yet, but this is where all the money gets spent and we can use all the help people are willing to give us! Keep your eyes open for updates on here about the fundraiser and we hope you all can make it!

I am so excited to finally share some amazing news with you all! 2.5 years later - I am going to be a mom!

Update

Hey everybody! It's been a long time since I have posted and I will share a bit of why. Justin and I have been so open (as I find it easier to struggle openly rather than in silence by myself), and I have done my best to be careful of what I am saying so that it's a real portrayal of where we are at, but not just me complaining all the time either. I want to be real with people because I, in turn, want to have people be real with me. The reality is that we all have people out there that are just negative, who have opinions about anything if it allows people to hear them talk. And unfortunately I have been a bit discouraged as people that really have little to no interaction with me and have probably talked to me only a couple times ever - decide they are the appropriate person to tell me that I'm not doing this or I'm doing this wrong, or they just flat out minimize the things that I am experiencing by saying "at least you have a husband because I don't" etc etc. And although I am far from a people pleaser, I do have feelings and get frustrated when people feel the need to say words that benefit no one and do more harm than anything. So I have had to refocus myself and thank all the people who have actually walked this road with me, who haven't judged me when I messed up (because I do it all the time) and who are the true definition of unconditional love in my life. It's easier for people to judge and give their unwanted advice - so thanks to everyone who is just there and feeds me real truth when it's needed! This road is long, tiring and hard. Thanks to people who listen to me vent about the same things over and over - and especially for not minimizing what I am feeling because we struggle with different things. I am truly blessed with many great people in my life! Your words are the ones I should be hearing not the few negative ones.

I also wanted to give an update for those of you who would like to know the status of our adoption. Mother's Day was a tough weekend for me, as I can recall the last couple years on Mother's Day when I would say to myself "next year". And as we know, next year keeps coming and we are still in the same spot. But thankfully we got an update the day after Mother's Day that really lifted my spirits and encouraged me. We are moving up the list with great speed! We are now number 11 on the African American list and number 12 on the Caucasian/Hispanic list. What this means for those who don't know how it works is this. The people who are waiting the longest are closer to the top of the list. When a mom comes in, they see what criteria the mom wants in a family, then the agency finds families that have matching criteria in what they want in a birthmom and the agency starts pulling family profiles from the top of the list. So your profile is more likely to get shown more often when you've been waiting longer and that ups your chances of being picked! So our spot on the list (here we come top 10) is exciting but I was most encouraged that we were shown twice in the past four weeks! We are getting closer! Hoping this journey will end soon, but not necessarily relying on that, as we don't know what God has in store for us, but we know that He is good and that's all we need.

Thanks for continued love and support. Although I've been frustrated with people's ignorance, I get more good comments then the bad. I love getting the Facebook messages from people letting us know they are thinking of us and praying for us. Those messages mean so much more than you know. Thanks for being awesome and loving, we are truly blessed. Looking forward to the day that we can share the excitement of actually having babies with you all!

Happy new year and wishing you the best for 2015!

Hey everyone, so it's 2015… that's crazy talk. I wanted to wish you a happy new year and give you a few thoughts on where I'm at as we move into a new year.

I honestly thought (and hoped and prayed) that 2014 was going to be the year we were matched and got to start growing our family. 2014 was a long, trying year for us, and I've been surprised with how long we have been waiting (even though the agency told us the average wait time is 9-18 months). I have met a few families over the past couple years who have adopted through our same agency. They were matched in about 6 months of active waiting. So I thought for sure that would be about what we would wait. Well, January 22 will mark the day of ONE YEAR of active waiting status. It's been a long year.

Part of me felt like "2014, what a waste of a year" when the year ended. But I feel like that attitude would not only slap God in face with all that he has taught me this year, but that it also makes it seem like I don't trust in God's perfect timing. I do trust that God's timing is best, but I am also getting rather impatient, and have been for a while.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 7 that we need to "ask, and you shall receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you". And I was saying to God, have I not been asking enough? But only a few verses before that in Matthew 6 he also says "Seek FIRST the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you". So I am challenged to make sure that during our wait I am still seeking God first, and a child second. God should be my biggest desire, not having children.

As I look at the struggle 2014 was, I pray that 2015 will be better and that we will have a family soon.

I also want to wish all of you a happy new year! I want to thank you all for your continued love, support, and prayers as we go through this tough time. We love you all and are very blessed with the people that surround us! Hoping to bring good news of our adoption to you soon!