Paper Pregnant!

I think this was the BIGGEST day in our adoption journey so far! Today we officially entered the Match Book and became available for birth families! What does this mean exactly? It means we are Paper Pregnant! ;)

Specifically though, this means that our match letter (basically a four page scrapbook layout of our family, as well as a message to the birthmom) has entered the Match Book at our adoption agency. When potential birth families are making an adoption plan, they are shown the Match Book which includes match letters from families that are waiting for placement. Based on the information and pictures in the match letter, the birth family chooses to meet with an adoptive family to discuss placement. Sometimes this means we will get to meet the birthmom while she is still pregnant, sometimes this means the birthmother will choose a family right after she's given birth at the hospital.

Right now, there are 33 families (including us!) in the Match Book at our agency. Adoptive families are told to expect to wait about a year for placement, and today that waiting officially began (even though we've been waiting for a baby for quite some time already)! Although the agency told us that the average wait is one year, we could get a call at any time from here on out saying a birthmom has chosen us to adopt her child! It could come tomorrow, next week, next month, or a year from now! It is completely dependent on what a birthmom is looking for in a family, and if we are the family she feels would be best for her child!

It is, as always, completely in God's hands. If I have learned anything the past few years, it is that I have little to no control over the majority of circumstances that roll my way! ;) I do my very best with what I'm given, but the rest I simply have to hand over to the Lord and trust Him. Trust is not an easy thing for me, and the Lord has continually worked on that area in my life again and again refining it until it is to His liking! And I'm still a long ways off!

Josh and I are both really excited and kind of in disbelief that we're at this point already. It seems like such a short time ago we were in our very first meeting with our caseworker discussing the application process! The entire adoption process so far has gone incredibly smoothly, and we are so thankful for that, as honestly we were expecting it to be a very bumpy road. Adoption can be a roller coaster of emotions, setbacks, waiting, and starting over. We are fully aware that so many things can happen from here to having our child safely in our arms, but we're thanking the Lord for how He has completely paved the way for us so far.

For now, there is not much for us to do but wait! We are praying continuously, preparing our children for having a new brother or sister, enjoying our time together as a family of four, and planning our last fundraiser!

We decided to take the month of March to step back from fundraising and focus our time and energy on praying for our new little one and how he or she will affect our family. We would love it if you would join us in spending the next few weeks completely devoted to praying for our new baby and his or her birth family! I have come to realize how much time, energy, emotion, and work goes into fundraising for an adoption. It is unavoidable and neccesary, and honestly we've been nothing but blessed by our friends' and family's financial support thus far. But it is also really draining and tough in many ways. I struggle a lot with asking our loved ones to continue to support us when they've done so much already. I struggle with feelings of "unfairness" that others so easily add to their family and we are holding fundraiser after fundraiser to afford an adoption. I struggle with guilt over asking people for financial support and feeling so awful that we can't swing the cost entirely ourselves. I struggle to come up with new ideas that will be successful and worth the energy and time it takes to carry them out.  It isn't easy! But I know it is so, so worth it. I have no doubt about that!

We have a great plan for our next and hopefully LAST fundraiser, but we'll wait a couple more weeks to share it here as we are really focusing on prayer for this adoption. If you'd like to join us in praying for our little one and all the things surrounding him, I will be posting a prayer request list in the next entry, and would be so honored if you prayed with us!

This is a very exciting day!  Thank you for celebrating with us and rejoicing in how far God has brought us in such a short time! Thank you so much for following our story, it is only going to get better from here!!! :)