Fully Funded!

We are super excited to announce that our adoption fund is now complete! To say we are grateful to God for His provision doesn't seem adequate, but we are truly so grateful.

While we did have to have an idea where our adoption money would come from, our agency doesn't require a debt-free adoption. They strongly encourage not putting it all on a credit card, however, and give many ideas for fundraising and where to apply for grants so as to lessen the financial burden. From the beginning, we had a desire to have a debt-free adoption but knew that timing in "the call" could possibly change that. If we had received a placement before being fully funded, we would've gone to Plan B which would have included a loan.

On one hand, we wanted to be placed quickly. On the other hand, the extra time was wonderful to finish saving the rest of the funds. We knew any time we had to keep adding to our adoption fund would bring us that much closer to meeting our goal before our days and nights are consumed with a new baby in our home. Besides, having a specific goal during this time of waiting has been very helpful to keep us focused and not as discouraged about the waiting involved.

So we say thank you to all who have given, helped with our fundraising and prayed with us along the way. Please continue to pray for our birth mother and for God's perfect timing in everything!

**I will write a post soon with more specifics about funding our adoption.**

Still Waiting

It's been a little while since an update here.

We are still waiting for The Call. We continue to trust in God's perfect timing in all of this. We know His timing and the situation He has picked out for us will ultimately be so much better than anything we could make happen ourselves.

But... at the same time, waiting can be difficult at times. We see other adoption placements happening and we wonder, "Where is our baby?" But we know God has a perfect plan and we rest in that.

Every day brings us closer to meeting our little one!

In other news, if you look at the widget on the right of the screen, you'll notice that we are nearly 100% funded! This is a huge praise as our desire has been to do a debt-free adoption. We are grateful for every donation, all our fundraisers, extra jobs and hours at work that have contributed to our adoption fund.

Our social worker came for a visit this past week to update our home study since it has now been one year since our home study was approved. There are a number of forms that must be completed every 365 days to keep everything current.

We continue to ask for your prayers in this process and eagerly look forward to getting The Call that we have been matched with a baby!

Adoption Grant Update

There are many organizations that will award adoption grants to qualified families. Qualifications and amounts awarded vary based on the organization.

Earlier this year, we began working on and submitting grant applications to a couple of grant organizations. Of course, not everyone, not even all qualified families receive grants but we knew it wouldn't hurt to apply. Most of these organizations receive far more applications than they could ever award grants to.

We found out a month ago that we did not receive a grant from the first organization we applied to. But today we received a notification letter from the 2nd organization stating that we had been chosen to receive an adoption grant from them!

To say we are excited and grateful is an understatement--we are so overwhelmed with the outpouring of God's provision. Receiving this grant means that the agency fees are now completely covered--we had already raised a good amount of the agency fees and this grant is the last little bit needed to finish that off.

Our next phase in the process is to now work on saving to cover finalization fees. This includes attorney fees as well as possible birthmother expenses. These costs are a little harder to calculate as they can vary based on the situation. Based on what we have been told by the agency and the attorney we have chosen, we are estimating finalization expenses to be in the vicinity of $4,000-$5,000. We already have almost $1,000 saved towards these costs. The attorney fees won't be paid until we are finalizing the adoption of our child so we have a little time to work on this goal.

Again, we thank you all for your support through this process and ask for your continued prayers!

Bake Sale Fundraiser

After a long hiatus of any active fundraising, we held a "Bake Sale Adoption Fundraiser" this past weekend. I love to bake from scratch so we set up a  Facebook event page and invited all of our local friends to order homemade honey wheat bread, cinnamon rolls and caramel pecan rolls. Yes,we taunted our friends with pictures of delicious treats. Hey, anything for the baby, right!?! ;-)

Ya'll, this fundraiser far surpassed my expectations! God really blessed our efforts. We ended up selling 30 (yes. THIRTY.) pans of sweet rolls-- 19 cinnamon and 11 caramel pecan. PLUS 9 loaves of bread. So exciting! 

This was stretched out over 2 days and I cranked out pan after pan of rolls. The second day I really got into a groove and it went even faster than the first day.

We are so grateful for this success and thank everyone who participated! It was so successful that we are planning another Bake Sale Fundraiser in August!

To date, we have raised well over half of our adoption costs. We continue praying and saving, doing some fundraising, gratefully and humbly accepting donations and praying and saving some more. We are so excited that we are starting to see the end in sight! It has been our {crazy} goal to have a debt-free adoption and it's starting to look like more of a reality.

We continue to wait to be matched with a birth mother and are excited to see how that will play out. Thanks so much for your prayers and support!

Waiting

We are still waiting. The Call that we have been selected by a birthmother could come any day or could be months away.

We are often asked if this is normal to take this long? Well yes, it is. Sometimes placement happens quickly and other times there is a longer wait. With our agency, it is typical to wait a year or more. 

Our home study was approved in October so we have now been waiting for 6 months. 

Our lives are full so time has gone quickly.  In other words, we aren't just sitting around waiting by the phone. 

We are continuing to save the needed funds for our placement fee of $14,150. We are so thankful that we already have over half of that amount saved thanks to fundraisers, donations from generous friends and family members and our own saving efforts. Our immediate need and current financial goal is to raise the remaining $6500 for the placement fee. 

We have applied for several adoption grants and will have to wait several months before we know anything about those. There is no guarantee that we will receive grant money but one thing is certain--we have a better chance of being approved for a grant if we fill out the paperwork and apply than if we chose not to apply at all! 

Our "Funds Raised To Date" widget on the sidebar here on the blog continues to wig out and not show the correct dollar amounts. Our total goal is $23,000 which includes agency costs, attorney/finalization fees and possible birthmother expenses. To date, we have raised approx. $12,000 of the total $23,000, leaving us with approx. $11,000 left to go. (I have exact numbers but am not near them right now!:) 

Waiting is not all about the finances although that has been a large part of this journey so far. We are preparing our hearts and home to receive a little one. 

We don't have the nursery completely set up and probably won't until after our little one is placed with us. But we do have some things set up and have acquired some baby items. 

We have been generously given many needed baby items already and have also been blessed to find other things at very good prices. The above pictured changing table was purchased at a yard sale and is in superb condition. 

I've been diligently building up a small diaper stash ever since we found out our home study was approved. My goal has been to buy one package of diapers per week. I haven't done this religiously but have bought at least 2-3 per month. These will come in handy once baby arrives. It won't be enough to last until potty training time but gives us a good start! 

As we continue to wait and trust God for His perfect timing for everything concerning our adoption, would you please join us in prayer? 

Pray for the birthmother of our baby--God knows her name and her situation-- that she would know how much she is loved by God and that He would guide her steps and decisions in the coming days. 

Pray for our future little one--for protection as he or she develops and grows. That he or she will always know how much they are loved and that their life has meaning and purpose. Psalm 139 comes to mind here! 

Pray that we will stay focused on Christ through this time of waiting, that our minds and hearts will be at peace, knowing that God has every detail written out. 

Pray that the remaining funds needed to complete the adoption will be provided at the right time. 

If you feel led to contribute financially you can donate through our You Caring page. 

Thank you for being a supporter of our adoption! 

Approved!!

To say that yesterday was life changing would be a gross understatement. We received official approval of our home study. What does that mean? It means that we are now eligible for placement and could be selected by a birth family at any time. It could be a few days, weeks or months but we're here. We're in the mix. We've made the list.

We are beyond excited and a little nervous. While we knew this moment would come the fact that it has arrived brings all sorts of emotions. It brings us a sense of reality that we hadn't experienced. Until now, we had been living almost exclusively with hope, the belief that we "could" be parents at some point in the future. Now, while still having hope, we're working more with the feeling of being on the clock. This is no longer an abstract concept, this is reality!

Thank you for your continued prayers as we walk through this new door. We are humbled by your generosity and support. We will do our best to keep you updated with whatever happens next.

September Fundraisers

We took July and August off from any serious fundraising other than our own savings efforts and now in September we have three fundraisers going on! It's crazy around here!

1. Our friend Crystal has organized a Mary Kay cosmetics fundraiser for us. This fundraiser is going on through Sunday, September 20th. She's generously donating 100% of all profits to our adoption fund! To order online, go to her website. Be sure and write Andy & Mary Ann (Mary Ann) in the notes section so she'll know to put it towards our fundraiser. Mary Kay has lots of awesome products that would make great Christmas gifts for teachers, family and friends so be sure to check it out! They even have a men's line!

2. Our friend Kira is doing a Jamberry nails adoption fundraiser. To order, visit her website and at checkout select Mary Ann's Adoption Fundraiser from the drop down menu. Jamberry features awesome nail wraps that are super fun and more affordable than going to a salon! Again, these make awesome Christmas gifts! For local friends, Kira will be at my house to show you how to apply the nail wraps next Monday, September 21st at 7pm.

3. Our third fundraiser this month is another yard sale!!! Yay! This is our 3rd and last yard sale for the year. Our past yard sales have proven very productive in bringing in funds so we're eager to do this one last time this year! We have plenty of treasures left from our last sale so all we have to do is set it out! We also have a number of things that have recently been dropped off as well as products of our own decluttering (hello, turning-guest/craft room-into-nursery!!!). Yard sale will be held Saturday, September 26 from 7am-1pm or when people stop coming.

As always, we thank all of you for your support during this process! We truly couldn't do it without the prayers, help and support from our friends and family! We have already raised over 1/3 of the total amount needed to complete our adoption. Our goal is to be completely funded by the end of the year! Will it happen? We'll see!