The Home Study

AAHHH!! The mountain of paperwork we were warned about! It's been two months since we committed to this journey and we are still trying to find the time to finish the home study!

The first big hurdle to really getting this adoption process going is the home study! We cannot move forward until we have been investigated and approved by a licensed social worker. This is the part of the journey that takes a lot of effort on our part. There is what seems to be an endless amount of paperwork: obtaining documents, photos, background checks, fingerprints, physicals, ect. (you name it... they want it) and trying to find the time to get it all done is very frustrating! 

The part of the home study that is most nerve wrecking is the fact that our lives are COMPLETELY exposed! We are working closely with a social worker (who is a very easy-going and kind woman) but, she has to know just about every detail of our lives. We have been asked questions about how we were raised? what our finances look like? what our marriage is like? what our debt looks like? what our future plans are? what our home is like- yes, she will even be coming to inspect our home! We are very grateful to have such a compassionate social worker and by God's providence, we have mutual friends which help ease the intimidation factor.

We understand the importance of being thorough with making sure we are qualified to parent and care for a child. We would not expect a child to be handed over to just anyone. We want to be as open and transparent as possible, but it is very humbling to have someone dig so intimately into your life!

 We are hoping to be completely finished with the home study by the end of the year. Once the home study is complete, we will move forward with adoption agencies and into the waiting pool. Oh, and our family profile book is just about ready. Can't wait to share what a great job our consultant, Susan, did with that!

Until next time...

An Unexpected Journey

People commonly talk about "when I have children..." or "one day my child..." but not many people speak in terms of "If I have children..." or  "what if I can't have children". We, as a society, are taught to expect the norm, to expect the way things should be according to what society deems "normal". We are expected to fall in love, get married, get pregnant, have a baby- this is normal.

We were those people in the first group. We would often talk about "when we have kids..." and we would often talk about who are kids would be like- until the day we received the devastating news that we could NOT have children biologically. Wait, What?!

What do you do with that news? cry?- check, be angry?-check, think "that's not fair, that's not the way it's supposed to be"-check check. All of these thoughts flooded our hearts and minds; however, we unexpectedly did not stay there long.  For us, we were quickly reminded that we live in a fallen world. We live in a world that is broken. We live in a world full of sickness and disease. How in this world could we ever "expect" things to happen as they should? Who's to say what is "normal"?

We are a family of faith. We strongly believe The Lord is very capable of allowing us to have a biological child despite what the doctors have said to be so; however, we also know that adoption is the example that The Lord uses to grow His family! Adoption is a beautiful reminder of the gospel. We feel beyond a shadow of a doubt that adoption is what The Lord intended for us all along.
 This is not what we expected, but we have learned to expect the unexpected and we are beyond excited to see where this "unexpected" journey takes us! Please, join us!