Officially "Waiting"!!!

We found out today from our caseworker that our homestudy has been finalized. We are officially "Waiting Parents"!!! When we began this Journey, this time seemed so far away. I would just encourage any family that is struggling with infertility to open their hearts to adoption. We really didn't know if we could trust an agency, and we truly do; we really didn't know if we could afford adoption, and we are; we really didn't know where to start, so we just jumped in, and now we have made it to this point. It feels amazing and exciting. We do not know how long it will be before we receive a phone call telling us that we have been chosen by a birthmother, but we hope to use this time to continue praying for our child and the parents that will bring him or her to our family. It seems like yesterday when we were so anxious about attending our orientation meeting, and now we are on the other side; excited to be closer to becoming Mommy and Daddy to our precious gift. We're here Little One, just waiting ...

We are still waiting for the final approval on our homestudy. Hopefully we will find out within the next week, and then we will have our profile available for birthparents to view. We plan to start working on our nursery this month. We're going with a pretty pale yellow for the walls with white wordwork. We already have a white iron daybed for the room~so that Grandma will have a place to sleep when she stays over. We are going to have to wait on crib bedding and curtain, since we have no idea if we will be blessed with a baby boy or a girl. But we can start adding books, toys (we always buy a little something for the baby when we take a trip), and lots of prayers and love to this room. Maybe by this time next year, we will preparing for a very special Father's Day at our house.

Today we found out about a family in a nearby town that adopted with our agency with only a 3 month wait. We are so excited for this family, and this gives us such hope that miracles do happen. It is so true that God will lead us to our child when the time is just right. We wish this family and our other recent adoptive family friends many blessings.

Our final caseworker meeting for our homestudy was yesterday. It was a little bittersweet, as now we just wait. No more meetings, papers to fill out, appointments to make and keep, etc. I have longed for this to come, but now I am realizing how hard it is truly going to be to just be waiting for the phone to ring. Our caseworker will be checking in with us quarterly, and we can call her anytime. We should find out within the next 2 weeks that our homestudy is complete and our profiles are available for viewing. Who knows, we might get a call in 6 weeks, or it could be up to 2+ years ~ oh how I pray for less than 2 years. We know that our family will be blessed with a child according to God's plan, but we all know how hard it is to put our timelines aside and follow His.

Well, our home visit went really well. All of that worry and the visit lasted only an hour! Our caseworker toured our home and asked questions about our neighborhood and community. It was a really positive experience. We, of course, had to end the meeting with some of my husband's famous cheesecake ~ always good to leave a Sweet impression! After the visit, we went to our favorite mexican restaurant and had a late lunch and just talked about this journey. We will have our last office meeting tomorrow to finish up our homestudy. Tonight we are completing our profiles ~ our photo books/family stories for birthparents to review. We will take them with us tomorrow, and within a couple of weeks they will be ready to be viewed by birthparents.

Our journey has been long up to this point, but now the real waiting is about to begin. One thing that we will be doing during this time is preparing the nursery. Although we agree that we don't want to choose a crib, changing table, etc., before placement, at least we can start preparing the space. We have decided on a very light yellow for the walls and will be adding a fresh coat of white paint to the woodwork. We purchased a beautiful quilt with lots of yellow, blues, and greens while on a recent trip, and we plan to decorate around these colors. If we should be blessed with a baby boy, we will add a blue wall to make it more masculine. If we should be blessed with a baby girl, I must add a petite chandelier. My husband rolled his eyes at that one!

So, we continue this journey, and we continue to pray daily that God will lead us to our child. Please pray with us, as for our family to be blessed with a beautiful baby, someone else will have to be willing to give us that most precious gift.

Wow~Time has been just flying by these past few weeks. First of all, we did get to have our first Yard Sale Fundraiser, along with cold temps and strong winds. We did pretty good considering the weather. We added hot coffee to start the morning and switched to lemonade after the first couple of hours. My nieces were real troopers, all wrapped up in blankets and selling lemonade.

We have also had our first office meeting with our caseworker. We were rushing to get to our appointment on time and arrived a bit frazzled (me). We were able to just retell our story~how we met, what first attracted us to each other, our marriage, and our everyday life. We also discussed questions about the adoption process. The time flew by, and it was a very positive experience.

Today~We are awaiting our caseworker for our home visit!! We had no idea this day would come so soon. We thought it would a month or so before we were this far along, but after our first office visit, we were told it was 2 weeks away. Then, I received a call asking if we could go ahead and do it within a week. I don't know what I was thinking when I said yes, but now we are glad that the day is here and will be over within just a few hours. I think my kitchen floor is so clean we could actually eat off of it~that is a first!

We have many people praying for us today, and we are feeling peaceful and calm. Bobby has been calm all along, but I think it is different for women. I have another woman coming into my home in about an hour to look things over. It is a bit intimidating. But, we are ready and after today we have one more office visit. After that, our homestudy will be complete, and we will officially be "WAITING PARENTS"!!!!!