Thirty- One Fundraiser/ Party is now open!!!

The party is now open click HERE to start shopping!

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I am excited to announce that we are going to start doing some fundraising on our blog. Baby A has his very own fund-raising blog (e-mail me if you want the link to that blog) all the money from that blog goes to our account with Reece's Rainbow and we will be able to use that money for air plane tickets, adoption agency fees and other costs related to adopting Baby A. We also have some up front costs (home study, psych. evaluations, USCIS) that we are hoping to cover the costs through fund-raising and that's what the money we raise on this blog will go to.

Our very first fundraiser will be a Thirty- One fundraiser and 20 percent of all sales from May 1st through May 15th will go toward Baby A's adoption. They have stylish purses, accessories and products that help organize the lives of busy women and their families. Everything is SUPER cute and don't forget Mother's Day is coming up. If you order on the 1st I don't think it will get to you in time or Mother's Day but your Wife/ Mother/ Grandmother/ Aunt/ Sister/ Daughter in law ;) will be so happy to know they have a gift coming and they were able to help Baby A :) Go look around these next few days and let the ordering begin on May 1st :)

To view the online catalog before 5/1, go to www.mythirtyone.com/DRhodes and click on View Our Catalog On or after 5/1, please visit www.mythirtyone.com/DRhodes

Click on My Events, then click on Shop Now next to “Baby A’s Adoption Fundraiser”.

I am not the worlds best blogger but if you click on the image it will get larger :)

Thank you guys so much for all of your support!

Vanessa

Our psych. reports are done!

I am so excited to tell you all that I will be picking up our psych. reports tomorrow and mailing them to our social worker so she can add that to our home study. Our psychologist said we passed our testing and I can't tell you how relived I was to heat that news! Everyone kept telling me not to worry but it was so hard not to. I am just glad I can put my mind at ease and stop stressing :)

Once our social worker adds the psych. report to our home study then we will send our home study and our USCIS paperwork off and bug them to death.... well call them a lot and see if we can get things moving along quickly.

I am so excited to be one step closer to bringing our boy home!

Vanessa

Better safe than sorry

For the last few days I have had this feeling that wont go away no matter how much I try to talk myself out if it it's still there so I am going with my gut. No on has told me to do this but I think it is so important to be more vague on here. Legally in Eastern Europe we are not supposed to use pictures of Baby A, his name or talk about his medical condition. I think most of the time they let it slide either because they don't really care or they never find out but the baby we are wanting to adopt is very well known and I want to do whatever I can to make sure no one can look at our blog and say you can't adopt him because you did x, y or z.

You can still see his updates and pictures on FB and I will still be updating the blog with information about where we are in the process but I will just be a lot more careful about what extra information I share.

I am kinda bummed out about it because I LOVE his name on here and his pictures and videos and in fact a SUPER sweet blog reader has been working very hard at giving this blog a make over but I think this is for the best. It will be so worth it when we are flying home with our boy and there were no complications due to me posting something I shouldn't have. I still have all the posts and I will make them public again once his adoption is finalized. I hope you can all bear with us during the next few months of picture-less and name-less posts. I feel like a Mother hen who wants to protect her young. I really think this is the best thing for the adoption so like I said in the title I would rather be safe then sorry.

I hope you all understand. When you leave comments please use the name Baby A.

Thanks!

Vanessa

Dear Baby A

Sweet Baby A,

There is so much I want you to know so much I want to say I am not sure where to start so I will start at the beginning. Jason and I have always wanted to adopt we have talked about it since the beginning of our marriage but weren't really sure when we should start. We knew after having Judah that he would be our last biological child and we would adopt all of our future children. We were so excited to start the process to adopt but again we really didn't know when we should start.

The Lord allowed us to be blessed with conjoined twin daughters on November 11th 2008 and it was during my pregnancy with them that I began to develop a HUGE heart for kids with special medical needs. Melody and Madison lived for an hour after birth and we were so thankful the Lord gave us that time with them. I was hoping we would be able to adopt a child with special medical needs because I truly know what a huge blessing all children are.

I had thought maybe we should wait until Judah was 2 to start the process to adopt but a few days before I found out about you I started really wanting to adopt right away. I kept thinking "no we should wait" then I would think "no I really want to start now." These feelings of wanting to adopt soon only increased as the days went on. Then on February 8th I clicked on my friend Kristy's FaceBook page and she had posted a link to your story and it was love at first sight. The more I read your story the more I fell in love. It is so hard to explain but I knew you were supposed to be our son and we needed to do whatever we could to bring you home!

I had about 30 minutes to wait until my husband got off of work to tell him all that I had just discovered. I prayed and prayed for Jason that if this was the Lord's will God would prepare his heart and he would be just as excited as I was. It finally came time to call him. I started telling Jason your story and I was brought to tears more than once telling him about your first year of life. After I got through telling him all about you and my desire to adopt you I said "so what do you think?" He said "we are all for adoption let's go for it." I was so excited!

I got off the phone with him and called Kristy right away to tell her that it is was our desire to be your forever family. She didn't answer but called me back about ten minutes later. I told her how much I loved you and how much we wanted you and she said "Vanessa I just got chills. I was rocking Hope to sleep when you called and I was praying asking the Lord if it was His will for us to adopt Baby A would He please show us and if not would he please close the door." I thought that was so amazing that God had clearly answered her prayer so quickly!

I got off the phone with her and started contacting the volunteers who were working so hard to find you a family. I started calling adoption agency's and home study agency's and working for hours and hours a day trying to get moving on your adoption.

I have never doubted for one second from the moment we found you that you are supposed to be our son and Lord willing one day (hopefully very soon) we will be able to officially say you are a Delgado.

I can not wait for the moment I get to hold you in my arms and tell you I am your Momma! I also can't wait until Jason is holding you and you can know that he is your Daddy! I love you more then you will ever know and I want you to know we are working as hard and as fast as we can to bring you home.

I love you sweet boy and I am so excited to see how well you are doing.

Love your soon to be Momma!

Vanessa

Dear Anton

I had the opportunity to write a letter for Anton and have it translated into his language and send it with a volunteer. I was so excited about sending a note to him and expressing our love for him but I had a really hard time trying to figure out the wording. Eastern Europe wont consider us committed to him until after we meet him for the first time and we sign paperwork saying we are committed to him. So I couldn't figure out how to word the letter. I didn't know if I should say hi I'm Vanessa and my family loves you very much and..... I couldn't really figure out how to word it with out saying too much so I decided not to do it. But after I saw the video on Anton's FB page of him sitting up all by himself I knew I had to start writing letters to him on here because I have so much I want him to know.

So here goes...

Sweet Baby Anton,

There is so much I want you to know so much I want to say I am not sure where to start so I will start at the beginning. Jason and I have always wanted to adopt we have talked about it since the beginning of our marriage but weren't really sure when we should start. We knew after having Judah that he would be our last biological child and we would adopt all of our future children. We were so excited to start the process to adopt but again we really didn't know when we should start.

The Lord allowed us to be blessed with conjoined twin daughters on November 11th 2008 and it was during my pregnancy with them that I began to develop a HUGE heart for kids with special medical needs. I was hoping we would be able to adopt a child with special medical needs because I truly knew what a huge blessing all children are.

I had thought maybe we should wait until Judah was 2 to start the process to adopt but a few days before I found out about you I started really wanting to adopt right away. I kept thinking "no we should wait" then I would think "no I really want to start now." These feelings of wanting to adopt soon only increased as the days went on. Then on February 8th I clicked on my friend Kristy's FaceBook page and she had posted a link to your story and it was love at first sight. The more I read your story the more I fell in love. It is so hard to explain but I knew you were supposed to be our son and we needed to do whatever we could to bring you home!

I had about 30 minutes to wait until my husband got off of work to tell him all that I had just discovered. I prayed and prayed for Jason that if this was the Lord's will God would prepare his heart and he would be just as excited as I was. It finally came time to call him. I started telling Jason your story and I was brought to tears more than once telling him about your first year of life. After I got through telling him all about you and my desire to adopt you I said "so what do you think?" He said "we are all for adoption let's go for it." I was so excited!

I got off the phone with him and called Kristy right away to tell her that it is was our desire to be your forever family. She didn't answer but called me back about ten minutes later. I told her how much I loved you and how much we wanted you and she said "Vanessa I just got chills. I was rocking Hope to sleep when you called and I was praying asking the Lord if it was His will for us to adopt Anton would He please show us and if not would he please close the door." I thought that was so amazing! She told me about Patrice (Jonah's Mom) and how she was wanting to help raise money for Anton's adoption. I couldn't believe all the support we had so quickly.

I got off the phone with her and started contacting the volunteers who were working so hard to find you a family. I started calling adoption agency's and home study agency's and working for hours and hours a day trying to get moving on your adoption.

I have never doubted for one second from the moment we found you that you are supposed to be our son and Lord willing one day (hopefully very soon) we will be able to officially say you are a Delgado.

I can not wait for the moment I get to hold you in my arms and tell you I am your Momma! I love you more then you will ever know and I want you to know we are working as hard and as fast as we can to bring you home.

I love you sweet boy and I am so excited to see how well you are doing through your FaceBook page!

Love your soon to be Momma!

Vanessa

We had our psych. evaluation's today.

Jason and I had our psych. evaluations today and they went really well. I was really nervous the whole time but overall it was a great experience. I am so thankful that none of the other psychologist were able to do it for us because we really really liked the one we used.

We did an interview together first then he interview me by myself while Jason did his testing then I did my testing and he interviewed Jason by himself. He was super easy to talk to and had a lot of really good advice for us.

He said everything looked good as far as our interviews went and as long as our testing results came back without any problems then we should be good to go (I can't remember exactly what he said but that is pretty close). We should know the results of our testing next week. Once we get that back we will send it to our social worker and she will finish up our home study. Once we mail our home study and our USCIS paperwork off then we will start working on our Dossier. Exciting stuff!!!! I am still not sure how long it will take it all depends on how long it will take to get the approval from USCIS but I will be calling often and doing everything I can to speed it up.

Thanks again for following our families journey to bring Baby A home!

Vanessa

We're still here.

Hi! I just wanted to write a quick post to let everyone know we are still here and busy as ever.

We are scheduled to have our psych. evaluations done THIS Wednesday and I could not be more excited! The Lord worked it out so perfectly and I can't wait to be able to get it do so that our home study will officially be done and we can send in our USCIS paperwork!

I might not be posting a lot just because a lot of what will are doing a this point is paperwork and there is only so much you can say about that :)

A few prayer requests:

1)Please pray for our psych. evaluations we will be there for at least 4 hours and I really want everything to go smoothly

2)Please pray our USCIS paperwork is processed quickly

3)Please pray I wont overlook anything in the paperwork (USCIS and dossier) that would cause a delay

4)Please pray God would be glorified through all of this

My love for Baby A grows more and more everyday and I can't wait for the day I get to hold him in my arms for the first time!

I will try to post after our psych. evaluations.

Vanessa